World's First Artificial Kidney made by an Indian

Artificial Kidney

An Indian-origin researcher-led team claims to have created the world's first implantable "artificial kidney", no larger than a coffee cup. Shuvo Roy and colleagues at University of California have developed the artificial kidney which they say not only filters toxins out of bloodstream, but also uses human kidney cells to perform other vital functions like regulating blood pressure and producing vitamin D.

The artificial kidney has been tested successfully on animals, and its human trials are expected to be held over the next five years. Once available, and if affordable, this creation by the Roy–led team at the University of California will do away with the need for kidney dialysis.

This will be a great help for all patients with chronic kidney disease (CKD). In India, of the 1.5 lakh new patients who suffer from end–stage renal failure annually, only 3,500 get kidney transplants and 6,000–10,000 undergo dialysis. The rest perish due to an acute shortage of dialysis centres and nephrologists to man them.

A prototype of the artificial kidney, unveiled recently, is a two-part system - half consists of a toxin-removing filter, in which thousands of silicon membranes are stacked together.
Their nano-pores are so dense, and so precisely shaped, that they can filter very precisely using only the force of the body's own blood pressure. Blood flows in through this filter, where the toxins, sugars, water, and salts are removed as a filtered solution.
The clean blood and watery filtrate are both shunted into the other half of the system - a separate cartridge. Though the scientists have tested the implant in a dozen rats and a handful of pigs, they claim that they still have to scale up the device's efficiency to something that could work effectively in humans. They hope to start human trials in five to seven years.