New Hope for Kidney Patients
938Live, 13 Aug 2007
EXCERPT:
Kidney patients in future may be able to move around while undergoing dialysis.
A team of scientists at the Institute of Bioengineering and Nanotechnology is working on developing a device, that acts like a dialysis machine but which is portable.
Kidney patients on blood dialysis are usually stuck at a dialysis centre for hours on end.
This limits their movements and compromise their quality of life.
But this may change in the next 10 years.
Scientists at the Institute of Bioengineering and Nanotechnology are working on developing a portable device, that acts like a dialysis machine, with the use of stem cells.
The device can be worn by patients undergoing dialysis, making them mobile.
Professor Jackie Ying, the Executive Director of the Institute says, that the project holds a lot of promise for kidney patients.
"What we are trying to do ultimately is replace all the functions of a kidney, with an artificial device and ultimately implant in the body. We hope to have a system that will allow us to have a wearable device that not only does hemodialyis which is the filtration of toxins but also the reabsorption function which provides the ability for the nutrients to be reabsorbed into the system."
Prof Ying adds that this will minimise the need for medication given to a patient.
Team leader of the project, Dr Karl Schumacher says, the use of stem cells in the device has so far shown promise.
"We are investigating these cell sources if they can be translated or differentiated into cells which have some kidney- like cell functions for example they can do some water transport which is very important for cleaning the blood so we have there some results, we know that these cells in principle could do that. They could not replicate all functions of the kidneys but some functions and these cells in that state could be used in those bioartificial devices."
A prototype of the portable kidney device may be ready for animal trials within the next 2 to 3 years.
The project was presented in a paper at the Third International Conference on Bioengineering and Nanotechnology at the Biopolis, which attracted more than 260 international delegates. |
