implantable, bioengineered rat kidney

From Kurzweil AI:

Bioengineered rat kidneys developed by Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) investigators successfully produced urine both in a laboratory apparatus and after being transplanted into living animals. The approach used in this study to engineer donor organs, based on a technology that Ott discovered as a research fellow at the University of Minnesota, involves stripping the living cells from a donor organ with a detergent solution and then repopulating the collagen scaffold that remains with the appropriate cell type — in this instance human endothelial cells to replace the lining of the vascular system and kidney cells from newborn rats.

The research team first decellularized rat kidneys to confirm that the organ’s complex structures would be preserved. They also showed the technique worked on a larger scale by stripping cells from pig and human kidneys. Making sure the appropriate cells were seeded into the correct portions of the collagen scaffold required delivering vascular cells through the renal artery and kidney cells through the ureter. Precisely adjusting the pressures of the solutions enabled the cells to be dispersed throughout the whole organs, which were then cultured in a bioreactor for up to 12 days. The researchers first tested the repopulated organs in a device that passed blood through its vascular system and drained off any urine, which revealed evidence of limited filtering of blood, molecular activity and urine production. Bioengineered kidneys transplanted into living rats from which one kidney had been removed began producing urine as soon as the blood supply was restored, with no evidence of bleeding or clot formation.

More here.