4 ms·
As someone on dialysis, this would be amazing to see. I wonder if the same immunoresponse issues would happen with this like with a transplant. The holy grail
by phibz 3y ago
As someone on dialysis, this would be amazing to see. I wonder if the same immunoresponse issues would happen with this like with a transplant.
The holy grail of transplant medicine for years has been acquired immunity, where you convince the immunesystem not to attack the transplant. Still hoping we see progress there, but this looks like a viable alternative to a donor transplant.
- candiddevmike 3y agoWould teaching the immune system to "forget" cover this situation (along with other autoimmune diseases) too?
- blorenz 3y agoAs someone totally unqualified to make an assessment about this, I feel selectively forgetting is much harder than generalized forgetting. This would make the person vulnerable to multitudes of vectors.
- robbiep 3y agoYou’re basically right, we have no idea how to do this - we can help the immune system remember new things (ie we’ve started teaching it how to attack cancers that it has been ignoring) but when the body wants to go at something, the only way we’ve been able to get it to sort it’s shit out is to wipe out all the agents of the adaptive immune system and implant a new one (give someone a bone marrow transplant). This has resulted in cures for patients with MS, but is really risky and doesn’t scale.
- justinclift 3y agoDoesn't catching measles somehow reset the immune system as well? As per articles a while ago like this: https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20211112-the-people-with-immune-amnesia https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20211112-the-people-with-...
- f6v 3y agoI think Treg therapies is something that could potentially be used in both autoimmunity and transplantation. But the again, the idea isn’t new and has been around for 20 or more years. As they say, “lost in translation”.
- cardy31 3y agoThere is a lot of research going into making kidneys without the markers that cause rejection. They hope to make pig kidneys compatible with human transplantation this way.
- mdhen 3y agoThey have one in a brain dead patient right now, been over a month with no issues.
- bobmaxup 3y agohttps://nyulangone.org/news/pig-kidney-xenotransplantation-performing-optimally-after-32-days-human-body https://nyulangone.org/news/pig-kidney-xenotransplantation-p...
- civilitty 3y agoDid the patient donate his body to science or something? What’s the legality and ethics of operating on a neurologically dead person?
- tialaramex 3y ago"This important research, which study leaders say could save many lives in the future, was made possible by the family of a 57-year-old male who elected to donate his body after a brain death declaration and a circumstance in which his organs or tissues were not suitable for transplant."
- DennisP 3y agoThe article says it "does not trigger the recipient’s immune system to go on the attack." I've read elsewhere that the biological stuff inside is sealed off from the immune system.
- hotstickyballs 3y agoIt’s pretty hard to seal off the kidney from the immune system since the immune system is in the blood and kidneys filter blood
- kelnos 3y agoAnd yet, they seem to have accomplished this, in pigs at least.
- epcoa 3y agoNo they have not. Read the article carefully. They have had some success with implanting renal epithelial cells, but they have not demonstrated filtration function. It’s promising but not quite there and things may go prove to be more difficult than you think. “ Eventually, scientists plan to fill the bioreactor with different kidney cells that perform vital functions like balancing the body’s fluids and releasing hormones to regulate blood pressure – then pair it with a device that filters waste from the blood.”
- DennisP 3y agoBut they did successfully isolate the epithelial cells from the immune system, as claimed above. And those cells survived for a week and managed to "mimic several important kidney functions." I don't see how they could have survived if they weren't exposed to blood. The filter won't be biological, so that part shouldn't trigger an immune response either.
- epcoa 3y agoWell they were “exposed” through a silicon membrane - but the point that were not exposed to whole blood. So the two questions on feasibility is how massive does this have to be to get effective filtration without resorting to pumping, and the thrombosis question. They discuss the methods - they last for 7 days but will they last for 7 years? 7 weeks? There’s just a ton of stuff between this experiment and a fully functional kidney.
- quasarj 3y agoWish this was coming sooner. Maybe one day I'll have one!