• Question: How long does it take to grow a kidney?

    Asked by Moriparty to Todd, Alejandra, Ana, Daniel, Sophie, Zach on 10 Mar 2017. This question was also asked by 773arth25, MMball03.
    • Photo: Daniel Morse

      Daniel Morse answered on 10 Mar 2017:

      I’m not sure about a kidney, and a whole kidney would be quite a complex organ to make (if you think from basic to complex: cell > tissue > organ). It’s made up of many different cells/tissue parts, and would probably take quite a long period of time to grow and mature – months I’d have thought (if it is even possible! It will be one day for sure if it isn’t already).

    • Photo: Todd Burton

      Todd Burton answered on 10 Mar 2017:

      Kidney tissue engineering is still in the very early stages. There are research groups that have managed to grow small representations using rat kidneys which have had their cells washed out and replaced. Other groups have managed to create really small kidneys equivalent to a fetus which take 14 days grow, but there is still a long way to go before we can grow an entire kidney.

      Possible ways could be to grow an immature kidney then implant that to mature within the person, as the person can remain on dialysis (to filter their blood) for some time.

      ‘The kidney project’ at the University of San Francisco is trying to make a device that can work like the kidney that could be implanted into people who are suffering with kidney disease.

      http://pharm.ucsf.edu/kidney

    • Photo: Alejandra Aranceta

      Alejandra Aranceta answered on 10 Mar 2017:

      I’m pretty sure that you cannot grow a whole organ just yet. There are some organs that regenerate themselves, like the liver. Did you know that sometimes you can split the liver in two, transplant the half to someone else and after a (long) while it regenerates?

    • Photo: Sophie Cox

      Sophie Cox answered on 11 Mar 2017:

      Hi Moriar-Tea,

      This is a super exciting area of research called tissue engineering where we try to take a patients cells grow them up in the lab, engineer what we call a scaffold (basically a material that is like the tissue we are trying to make better), and then implant the cells + scaffold back into a patient to regenerate their diseased or damaged body part.

      While it would be amazing for us to be able to grow organs and Todd’s work in this areas sound really cool, I also think there are some interesting ethical questions. Like what if one day we can just repair any disease and just grow any organ and keep people alive much longer? Is it ethically right to fight the negative effects of ageing? Is extending life always a good thing?

      Any thoughts on this anyone?

    • Photo: Ana Gallego

      Ana Gallego answered on 15 Mar 2017:

      I really don’t know.

      I have seen lab-grown burgers from cow’s stem cells, but I am not sure how long it takes.

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