Scientists develop artificial kidney which promises to be an implantable device
Scientists are steadily making progress in developing artificial body part and organs that’ll come handy in sustaining a human life. Latest progress in context is an artificial kidney prototype powered by the circulatory system. Developed by multi-institutional team, led by University of California-San Francisco’s professor Shuvo Roy, the room-sized version is showing promise and with the same silicon chip making process, the scientists believe they can scale down its size to a coffee-cup-sized device which’ll be implantable, thus relieving people of kidney dialysis and waiting for kidney donors.
Because transplants and dialysis are the only ways to treat kidney failures today, therefore this development of artificial kidney is surely going to be a bone for all patients around the world. The artificial kidney system, which is “a two-stage system involving thousands of nanoscale filters placed in a “BioCartridge,” which would remove toxins from the blood. A "HemoCartridge" bioreactor made of engineered renal tubule cells would mimic the metabolic and water-balancing roles of a real kidney. The system uses a patient’s blood pressure to perform filtration without the use of pumps” takes leaf from the advancements in nanotechnology and tissue generation.
Via: ScienceDaily/PopSci
