Source: Good News Network
An implantable bioartificial kidney may be ready for human trials by the end of the year, according to a recent update from the researchers.
If approved by the FDA, the breakthrough creation could save thousands of patients currently on the transplant list for a new kidney.
The Kidney Project, which is the coalition heading the contraption’s development, published an update today saying that they have been asked to conduct additional preclinical testing before receiving approval for human trials.
“While the request for additional evidence was not anticipated, it is a measure of the revolutionary nature of our project that there is no precedent for safety reviews of similar technology and materials,” wrote the organization. “In that light, it is understandable that the research ethics boards are requesting additional data to document the safety of the bioartificial kidney.”
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The project, which is headed by researchers from the University of California San Francisco (UCSF), the University of Vanderbilt, and the National Institute of Biomedical Imaging and Bioengineering (NIBIB), says that they are optimistic about receiving approval for the trials by late 2018 or early 2019.
The coalition first started causing buzz on the internet after they published their groundbreaking research back in February.
Creating an artificial implantable kidney would be an epic advance in medicine and could address a chronic shortage of donor kidneys needed for transplant.
Researchers have been at this quest for the past 15 years and keep coming upon one extremely knotty problem: how to keep the blood flowing smoothly through the artificial device without clotting. In such devices, as blood platelets respond to mechanical forces, they have a natural tendency to clot, causing a device malfunction.WATCH: Hundreds of People Are Being Cured of Blindness Every Day With Cheap, Minutes-Long Surgery
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