{"id":17818,"date":"2015-09-25T10:47:03","date_gmt":"2015-09-25T17:47:03","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2015\/09\/lab-grown-kidneys-shown-to-be-fully-functional-in-animal-recipients"},"modified":"2017-04-25T00:12:34","modified_gmt":"2017-04-25T07:12:34","slug":"lab-grown-kidneys-shown-to-be-fully-functional-in-animal-recipients","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2015\/09\/lab-grown-kidneys-shown-to-be-fully-functional-in-animal-recipients","title":{"rendered":"Lab-grown kidneys shown to be fully functional in animal recipients"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a class=\\'blog-photo\\' href=\"http:\/\/www.sciencealert.com\/images\/articles\/kidneys-lab_1024.jpg\"><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter\" src=\"\"><\/a><\/p>\n<p>The past few years have been marked by the proliferation of lab-grown organs, including <a href=\"http:\/\/www.sciencealert.com\/scientists-produce-the-first-lab-grown-limb\">limbs<\/a>, <a href=\"http:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/science\/2015\/jul\/08\/laboratory-grown-organs-transform-lives\">livers<\/a>, <a href=\"http:\/\/www.sciencealert.com\/lab-grown-skin-might-replace-animal-testing\">skin<\/a>, <a href=\"http:\/\/www.sciencealert.com\/new-lab-grown-heart-tissue-sticks-together-like-velcro\">heart tissue<\/a>, and yep, <a href=\"http:\/\/www.sciencealert.com\/lab-grown-penises-ready-for-human-trials\">even penises<\/a>. But piecing together an organ, cell-by-cell, in a way that resembles the real thing is only half the challenge \u2014 you\u2019ve actually got to make it work as part of several incredibly complex systems in a living, breathing organism. And that\u2019s where most attempts fall flat.<\/p>\n<p>But researchers in Japan have managed to grow fully functioning kidneys in the lab, and when transplanted into pigs and rats, they filtered out urine just like a natural kidney. Built using stem cells that had been extracted and then incubated in the animal recipients, the kidneys point to the possibility of lab-grown kidneys for humans in the future.<\/p>\n<p>Led by Takashi Yokoo from the Jikei University School of Medicine in Tokyo, the team figured out how to overcome a challenge they\u2019d faced previously with these lab-grown kidneys: they were good at processing urine, but instead of passing it into the natural ureter, they ballooned dangerously under the pressure.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.sciencealert.com\/lab-grown-kidneys-shown-to-be-fully-functional-in-animal-recipients\" target=\"_blank\">Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The past few years have been marked by the proliferation of lab-grown organs, including limbs, livers, skin, heart tissue, and yep, even penises. But piecing together an organ, cell-by-cell, in a way that resembles the real thing is only half the challenge \u2014 you\u2019ve actually got to make it work as part of several incredibly [\u2026]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":367,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-17818","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-biotech-medical"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17818","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/367"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=17818"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17818\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":45745,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17818\/revisions\/45745"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=17818"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=17818"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=17818"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}