Researchers at Wake Forest Baptist Medical Center are advancing the field of regenerative medicine with a new method to keep blood vessels open and viable in lab-built kidneys. Experimenting with scaffolds created from pig kidneys, the scientists coated the scaffold vessels with endothelial cells, using an antibody to facilitate cell adhesion. The treated vessels supported blood flow in a four-hour test. More research is needed to ensure that this method prevents blood clots, but the researchers are hopeful that pig kidneys the size of human kidneys will one day be used to create scaffolds infused with a patient’s own cells.
Source:
Milestone Reached in Work to Build Replacement Kidneys in the Lab, ScienceDaily, September 9, 2014