Cloning the kidney, dialisys a think of the past?

[Chris Brady]

Apparently, they've managed to clone a functional kidney, it's not quite up to specs, but its a definite thing of the future.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-22123386

A kidney "grown" in the laboratory has been transplanted into animals where it started to produce urine, US scientists say.

Similar techniques to make simple body parts have already been used in patients, but the kidney is one of the most complicated organs made so far.

A study, in the journal Nature Medicine, showed the engineered kidneys were less effective than natural ones.

But regenerative medicine researchers said the field had huge promise.

Kidneys filter the blood to remove waste and excess water. They are also the most in-demand organ for transplant, with long waiting lists.

The researchers' vision is to take an old kidney and strip it of all its old cells to leave a honeycomb-like scaffold. The kidney would then be rebuilt with cells taken from the patient.

This would have two major advantages over current organ transplants.

The tissue would match the patient, so they would not need a lifetime of drugs to suppress the immune system to prevent rejection.

It would also vastly increase the number of organs available for transplant. Most organs which are offered are rejected, but they could be used as templates for new ones.

Read the article for the full story.

[RubySlippers]

Just PAY people for kidneys why do this? Offer a healthy low income American say $10,000 for a kidney they might sell one and I suspect it would be faster and cheaper than doing this. If cost is an issue poor people in third world countries might sell a kidney for far less.

[Oniya]

For one thing, you have to do tissue matches to ensure that the organ isn't rejected outright.  Once an organ is removed from the body, it's not like you can slap it in the fridge indefinitely, like you can with blood or plasma.  You have to perform the transplant within a very limited time-span.  That 'healthy, low-income American' may very well have a kidney they can do without, but there may not be a recipient that cross-matches with them - and then what?

[Beguile's Mistress]

You can take a look at this article for a price list of body parts. 

http://gizmodo.com/5904129/heres-how-much-body-parts-cost-on-the-black-market

Kidneys are $262,000.00 US according to the above.  Now if they'd let you sell a child...  Yeah.  Strike that.  Where does it stop?  A plot in a thriller I read some years ago involved a wealthy industrialist "shopping" for organs for himself and several family members.  Cost was no object. 

I'm not sure how reliable gizmodo.com is so if anyone can find more documentation feel free.

[MrBubbles]

Kidneys go for $262,000? Wow, I can certainly think of a few things I could do with that sort of money.

It's really surprising to me that the most expensive organ on that list is also the least vital (in the sense of how your quality of life would change from it missing.)

[Oniya]

You can take a look at this article for a price list of body parts. 

http://gizmodo.com/5904129/heres-how-much-body-parts-cost-on-the-black-market

Kidneys are $262,000.00 US according to the above.  Now if they'd let you sell a child...  Yeah.  Strike that.  Where does it stop?  A plot in a thriller I read some years ago involved a wealthy industrialist "shopping" for organs for himself and several family members.  Cost was no object. 

I'm not sure how reliable gizmodo.com is so if anyone can find more documentation feel free.

Figure into that cost not only the cost of procuring the organ, but also the cost of bribing a qualified surgeon to do both the removal and the transplant (unless you want to pay for two surgeons), as trafficking in human organs has been illegal for many years.