• Question: Why did you want to grow a kidney?

    Asked by Rhythm of life23 to Todd, Sophie on 11 Mar 2017. This question was also asked by Snooks.
    • Photo: Sophie Cox

      Sophie Cox answered on 11 Mar 2017:

      Hi Rhythm,

      Kidneys are very difficult to regenerate. So if people’s kidneys get damaged or diseased then it would be awesome if we could engineer them a new one. From my understanding that’s what Todd’s research is all about but I’m sure he can give you some more details 🙂

    • Photo: Todd Burton

      Todd Burton answered on 13 Mar 2017:

      Hi Rhythm,

      Did you know, in 2014 alone 5,000 people in the UK were registered on the kidney transplant list! There aren’t currently enough organs donated to keep up with the demand. Dialysis is used to to treat those who can’t get a kidney transplant but this doesn’t replace all the function of the kidney and those people need to visit the hospital for several hour a couple of times a week. As kidney tissue engineering is a relatively understudied field there is a lot of work to be done before we can create something suitable to implant but all work has to start somewhere!

      In the shorter term kidney cells which are grown could be used to test new drugs, if human cells are used this could give us a better understanding on how drugs will act within our bodies and might reduce the number of animal needed for testing.

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