Scientists take historic steps - they grow human kidneys in pigs

Scientists have grown kidneys containing mostly human cells inside pig embryos, an important step toward growing kidneys and other human organs that can be used for transplants in humans.

The technique, described in a new study published Thursday in the scientific journal Cell Stem Cell, involves changing the genetic makeup of pig embryos and then injecting the human cells that will go on to create the kidney inside the animals. The researchers involved said it's the first time scientists have been able to grow a humanized solid organ inside another species, reports cnn.

According to the study, the embryos, when implanted into surrogate pig mothers, began to grow kidneys containing mostly human cells that had a normal structure after 28 days of development.

"It took us five years," said the study's senior author, Miguel Esteban, principal investigator at the Guangzhou Institute of Biomedicine and Health, Chinese Academy of Sciences.

"We genetically modified the pig to create a space where the human cells would grow with less competition with the pig cells, and we also modified the human cells to make them survive in an environment that was not their nature ", he said.

Kidneys are the most commonly transplanted organs in humans, with more than 88500 people waiting for a transplant in the United States, according to the Organ Procurement and Transplantation Network.

The aim of the experimental research is to use this technology to create organs from an individual patient's cells, with the pigs essentially serving as incubators, resulting in a greatly reduced risk of rejection. However, it could take years and would be a complex process, the authors pointed out.

"Ultimately, we would like to produce human organs that can be used for transplantation or disease modeling, but this will take time and we will likely face additional technical hurdles as we move forward," the researcher asserted and added that "however, we think it is possible".

The team is also working to generate other human organs in pig embryos, including the heart and pancreas. /Telegraph/