Working kidney grown in mouse

NewScientist.com news service ^ | 23 December 02

[Future Useless Eater]

Complete working kidneys have been grown in mice using stem cells derived from human and pig fetuses. If the feat can be repeated in humans, it will allow doctors to replace damaged organs without the need for a donor.

The Israeli team, who used three-month-old mice as recipients for the growing kidneys, were able to avoid immune rejection by using embryonic stem cells. The developing kidney takes time to acquire 'antigen presenting cells' which are recognised by the host immune system as foreign.

Embryonic stem cells are also able to adapt to their host, reducing the chance that they will be rejected later in development, says Camillo Ricordi, University of Miami, who works on transplanting islet cells into the pancreas to cure type I diabetes.

"Our data pinpoint a window ... that may be optimal for transplantation in humans," say the researchers in their paper in Nature Medicine. If the cells are too young, they do not develop into all the necessary cell types. But if taken too late, the developing kidney will be rejected.

The kidneys functioned well enough to produce dilute urine. But the organs did not connect up with the host's excretory system. Instead, the researchers, led by Yair Reisner at the Weizmann Institute of Science in Rehovot, Israel, connected a catheter directly into the developing organ. If the technique were used on patients, surgery would be required to connect up the developing kidney.

Safety questions

Reisner's team hopes that if the technique can be applied to humans it will mean an end to the years of waiting that patients often have to undergo for a donor. Over 50,000 people are on the waiting list for a kidney transplant in the US and more than 2000 people die annually waiting for a match.

However, growing a kidney from pig cells transplanted into a human body will raise safety questions. There are fears that such xenotransplantation could allow porcine endogenous retroviruses (PERVs), which are present in the pig genome, to jump to a human host.

"That is always a concern," says Ricordi. "But more and more data support the fact that it is not a possibility." Hundreds of patients have been given pig islet cells, but none have shown signs of the virus.

Using human embryonic stem cells would avoid the risk of PERVs but involves the destruction of human embryos, which is ethically unacceptable to some.

[Future Useless Eater]

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It sounds like a LOT of diseases could have breakthru's soon. Imagine, a CURE for type I diabetes, by growing a new pancreas.

Other interesting topics seen there...

• Out-of-body operation banishes tumours

• Rat neurons control robot

• A collagen-dissolving drug could provide 'chemical liposuction'

• Gene study identifies five main human populations

• Complete tadpole eyeballs grown in lab

• Lab-grown muscle sheets repair damaged hearts

  In a related story ... "Researchers have grown lengths of the corpus cavernosum in the lab" ... THAT would certainly 'lift' men's egos! /pun>

[gov_bean_ counter]

This explains the yellow spot next to my PC.

[gov_bean_ counter]

Sorry, couldn't resist.

[Scully]

Ping!

[gcruse]

Wow. The future is coming in a flood.

[Husker24]

That must have been one BIG mouse.

[MHGinTN]

If the feat can be repeated in humans, it will allow doctors to replace damaged organs without the need for a donor. This writer obviously doesn't consider a 'fetus' (latin for child) an individual human being thus there is 'no donor'. Therapeutic cloning will be the insertion of a patient's nuclear material into the de-nucleated egg from a donor, then a static charge will begin a gestation of individual life (but not a human life since the 'scientists' never intend to allow the gestating life to come to full term before being 'harvested' for parts). At the time when tissues have differentiated sufficiently for identification the fetus will be terminated and the tissues harvested for treatment of the parent of the clone.

The trick will be to take cells from the patient in need of a kidney and grow a kidney without going into the fetal stage. That would be cloning of a sort without cannibalizing.

[Sonny M]

This is one of those things that hits home personally. My father is very ill, his one kidney has pretty much failed and we are delaying dialisis. Here is my question to all the freepers out there. Would you support or oppose a "Implied Consent" law. Basically, on the back of your drivers licience, it gives you the option to be an organ donor, if you don't fill it out, your not. What I want is the reverse, that you automatically are an organ donor and you have the option to opt out on the back of the card. What do you Freepers think about this? I know at least one or two european countries already do this. I do not know how there systems work though.

[Future Useless Eater]

you're right about embryos, but you missed the part about using porcine (pig) embryos. Pigs have dna very close to ours and there is hope their organs can be engineered to work without rejection in humans.

I can't wait for that to become a reality, and then watch as Muslim leaders, dying of some disease make exceptions to their religion to allow 'PIG PARTS' to save their lives.

[MHGinTN]

What I posted regards the vast majority of cloning experimentation. The Vicanti brothers are also doing stem cell organ growth without harvesting from fetuses or embryos. They've grown an outer ear on a mouse's back.

[MHGinTN]

Did you miss this part?... Using human embryonic stem cells would avoid the risk of PERVs but involves the destruction of human embryos, which is ethically unacceptable to some. I like the notion of pig transplants and Islamicists' 'moral' dilemma! Osama would opt for the transplant but keep it top secret don'tchaknow!

[Tree of Liberty]

While I might no longer inhabit my body upon my death, I do consider it part of my estate to be done with as my wishes dictate, or, if my wishes are not known, what my next of kin directs. An 'opt-out' method runs contrary to this philosophy.