This could very well herald the dawn of a new era in regenerative medicine research. Researchers at Wake Forest Baptist Medical Center in the USA found that human kidneys discarded for transplant can potentially serve as a natural “scaffolding material” for manufacturing replacement organs in the lab using regenerative medicine techniques.

According to lead author of the research Giuseppe Orlando, M.D., Ph.D., “With about 100,000 people in the U.S. awaiting kidney transplants, it is devastating when an organ is donated but cannot be used. These discarded organs may represent an ideal platform for investigations aimed at manufacturing kidneys for transplant.” Currently in the USA alone 2,600 kidneys are discarded every year and in other countries too, the discard rate is as much as 5 to 10% of all donated kidneys.

The research though still in infancy has the potential to offer hope to those waiting for a kidney transplant.  An analysis of the decellularized organs revealed that antigens likely to cause an immune response were removed in the cleaning process. “This finding has significant implications,” said Orlando. “It indicates that transplantation of such customized kidneys could be performed without the need for anti-rejection therapy. In addition, these kidneys maintain their innate three-dimensional architecture, their basic biochemistry, as well as their vessel network system. When we tested their ability to be transplanted (in pigs), these kidneys were able to maintain blood pressure, suggesting a functional and resilient vasculature.”

The science of regenerative medicine has already had success in engineering skin, cartilage, bladders, ureters, trachea and blood vessels in the lab that were successfully implanted in patients. Most of these structures were able to receive oxygen and nutrients from nearby tissues until they developed their own blood vessel supply. However, more complex organs such as the kidney, liver, heart and pancreas are larger with dense cellular networks and must have their own oxygen supply to survive. The need for a blood supply is why scientists are exploring the possibility of using donor organs and “seeding” them with a patient’s own cells.