Study Discovers A New Device That Emulates Human Kidney Function! Find Out More Here

The researchers at Binghamton, State University of New York have developed a model kidney for working out the kinks in medicines and treatments instead of the standard method of running tests on live kidneys. The study developed the reusable, multi-layered and microfluidic device which incorporates a porous growth substrate, with a physiological fluid flow, and the passive filtration of the capillaries around the end of a kidney, known as the glomerulus, whereby waste is filtered from blood.

"This is a unique platform to study interactions between drugs and cells or tissues, specifically in the kidney, where current models were lacking," senior author of the study Courtney Sakolish PhD, said. She added that they hope that in the future, these platforms will be used as an animal alternative during pre-clinical testing so as to direct the studies towards a successful and more accurate result in humans, Science Daily.

The procedure is mainly tissue engineering, but not for replacing an organ or tissue in a person, according to senior author of the study, Gretchen Mahler. He added that the procedure is solely for the recreation of the function of major organs in a more simplified way for use as a drug screening tool.

Since finding new drugs is very hard, expensive and inefficient, they believe that by using human cells in a physiological environment, it can aid in directing the resources toward the most promising new drug candidates and determine that other new drug candidates will fail, faster. The findings of the study suggest that cells that are grown in the device display more natural behaviors compared to cells grown in traditional culturing methods, and the filtration by the glomerulus is necessary for healthy cell function.

The researchers discovered that the more complex, dynamic culturing conditions are necessary to accurately predict renal drug toxicity in human systems. They found substantial differences in the ways that cells behaved when they compared physiological renal function and drug toxicity in traditional static culturing against the new model. In the platform, cells looked and acted similar to those that are in the body, displaying more sensitive responses to drugs than the traditional static culturing, Eurekalert.

The researchers noted that their study is the first to offer glomerular filtration, even though other studies have developed microfluidic models of the proximal tubule. The device uses human cells in a dynamic, more physiologic environment, thereby making it efficient at predicting the body's response to drugs than animals or static cell cultures which are the commonly used preclinical screening tools.