Researchers Announce First Implantable Artificial Kidney Prototype

1. How expensive is it? Dont wanna have to sell my leg for a kidney.

2. How heavy is it? Dont wanna move the wrong way and have this thing twist out of place. (Shivers at the thought)

3 What about an auto defense attack against the components of the device?

4 How does it compare to the original fully healthy kidney? Does it take longer to filter the same amount of blood?

5 Good job. Cant wait until the scientists make a super kidney that can process poisons and venom.

AWESOME!!!

Just plain awesome!

Thank you, thank you, THANK YOU

Nice! lol two articles today, that was productive!

FYI: Make sure you stay on top of your payments for that kidney... don't want that Repo man to break into your house and rip it back out of you when your 90 days past due. Just saying =)

Sounds great and all but.....what happens when the filter has become full? Does that mean surgery for filter replacements!?

Warning! Im about to say something totally unrelated to this article!

Also I am stupid and cant realize that a mechanical kidney has a much less chance of causing an autoimmune response than a transplanted one.

Love UFCwarrior.

But where does the filtered toxins go?

the toxins go... erm. well. you see... thats what bathrooms are for.

Crazy. If technology keeps advancing the way it is, by the time I'm an old man there will be replacements for everything lol.

Fantastic, i love science. people actually using their brains do do use full things once thought impossible; something rarely seen in everyday average Joe life these days
UFC why are you here? i didnt think rednecks believed in science; after all isnt Jesus is to thank for everything and science(and everything else you dont understand)is a sham?

"everyone will have to live under sharia law (sharia law, look that up on wikipedia) sharia law is what muslims
live under and its a horrible barbaric backwards way of life"

Ignorance must be bliss.

From wikipedia on Sharia law.

"All Muslims believe Sharia is God's law, but they have differences among themselves as to exactly what it entails.[1] Modernists, traditionalists and fundamentalists all hold different views of Sharia, as do adherents to different schools of Islamic thought and scholarship. Different countries and cultures have varying interpretations of Sharia as well"

Just like our laws... if ya got the cash.

@UFCWarrior, I am an atheist and I am against religion, including islam. BUT, this is a science website and I don't think it is appropriate to discuss islam and religion here. There are thousands of sites and blogs where you can spread your intolerance to religion. You can have your own website to share your opinion about it, so I would suggest not to do it here.

I agree with what you said about an importance of stem cell research, but I wouldn't say that mechanical body parts are crap. And also, I wouldn't say that we live in a stone age. If we did, me and you would have never met.

By the way, I live in Europe and next to a muslim country. It's all cool, we live in peace.

UFCwarrior, chill bro I live in Europe in a country neighboring two muslim countries, even in my country 1/4 are muslims, in my city there are a few thousand muslims.....they`re ok :)) like all people they come to Europe not to cnoquer the world, but searching a better life then where they came from. I know it`s probably difficult for you to understand this cause you`re from the US and there were no wars on your territory for a long time, and overall your living standard is above almost all countries in the world. :) There were a few wars in my country and around it in the past years, and none of them were for freedom or world domination by muslims, they were politicaly `created`...now thats a different subject, my point is - enjoy your beautiful life in the US, and feel free to come to Europe to see it for your self :) (P.S. you souhld be more concerd about your banks and corporations ;)

now to the science part of this....yeah, it`s all Repo man :)

@ EVERYONE that reads UFCwarrior's comments: Don't be fooled by this troll.. its too obvious that this MF wants to be dropped from PopSci. If you check all the comment in his account, you'll see that all he rambles about is Islam like he has a PHD in religion.What a hypocrite!

Just goes to show: give an idiot a PC and access to the internet and he'll think he knows all.

@PopSci Admin: And here I though you guys were serious....

The guys who successfully grew a bladder in the lab are now working on growing a kidney in the lab. When they get their process perfected, it will probably be significantly cheaper than this, work better, and last longer. By the time this passes clinical trials, the other probably will have as well. Do we even need this?

Don't get me wrong, the technology is cool and all, and it might be good for someone who doesn't have the time to wait for one to be grown (i.e., rich folks who want everything NOW), but I just don't see this panning out as well as regenerative medicine.

I need to watch for all of these "coulds" in the titles before I click. We have an illustration of an implantable artificial kidney and then the designers fessing up that it is, at present, larger than a dialysis machine - but they're *very hopeful* they'll get it down to an implantable size soon. Oy.

UFCWarrior amuses me. It's like some kind of Tourette's. He makes perfectly sensible posts but pastes in his hateful little rant at the top of every one. It gives the sense that he's thinking "I have something to say about this!", shouting "White Pride!", and then pausing for a moment to remember what he was talking about.

Reporting, though. = )

The seeker of knowledge who seeks to reach beyond the stars to go where no mans gone before to see things no man has seen and bring these experiences back for the whole world to hear and see.

UFCwarrior this message is for you not all Muslims are radical
and your ignorance shows it when you say such things.Ill be happy to tell you i know twenty Muslims that are my close friends all of them are Muslim and are kind giving individuals and when people such as yourself spit on them by saying such fact less things and spring such nonsense online is just rude and arrogant.All my Islamic friends are Muslims and are nice people they know im christian and no their not trying to kill me for it i eat with them sometimes and hangout with them their a great bunch of people i think you simply fear them for all the negative atension people say about them but that is just a segment of the religion im not saying all Muslim believers are as kind and and cool as the ones i know but all people are different and just like any religion people conclude their own interpretations from them so you saying Muslims taking over Europe is bad i see it as a step towards a more stable Iran and sub countries that shows Europe is not judging the whole religion as evil cause its not and if any of you don't believe me go speak to a Muslim in your area you never know they may become your best friend and one more thing UFCwarrior if you are saying such outlandish things like that probably means you think ill of more than one culture so try to look from their point of view every culture and country has its own way of life and way of doing things your are simply familiar with American point of view you have to travel or mingle more with other cultures to understand their cultural aspects of life again this is TrulyVisionary till next time live long and prosper.bye

The seeker of knowledge who seeks to reach beyond the stars to go where no mans gone before to see things no man has seen and bring these experiences back for the whole world to hear and see.

On another note i think this article is a step in a new direction this device is yes a machine but think of it as the beginning of future technology to come this a life saver for anyone who without it would be stuck on a donor list that could be hundreds to thousands long to have an alternative method of biding time till a donation is possible would do the patients of kidney failure a fighting chance in battle the omen so all of you who judge it as a why is it aww inspiring technology is because the human body is a complex system that has tons of cells of different roles and jobs that combine to make a human so nothing biologically as far as technology is going to happen over night it takes complex study's and years and years of hard research then those ideas have to be approved by the fda witch also takes years to even be able to put it in or be givin to any person so all of you understand this technology is fantastic and hope they can continue with its progress so that so people with these ale mens can be givin a good hope this is TrulyVisionary till next time .live long and prosper

@TrulyVisionary

lol star trek refrence ;)

damn whats with all these spammers and trolls.

Onihikage, it's worth pursuing both. So what if they are both successful? Nothing is wasted. There are two potentially fruitful avenues for future research into solving related problems, instead of just one.

There will doubtless be patients for whom the mechanical solution is indicated rather than the biological one, and vice versa... think of people allergic to one or more of the machine's components, or people who for some reason can't support the lab-grown kidney. Having alternatives is always better and safer than not having them.

hmm a future of non failing organs. then they will start replacing your bones with boron steel , and major corporations will start hiring these super humans to fly around in mech suits blowing teh stuff up and when you get 50,000 in debt they take more body parts replacing muscle tissue and brain matter finally an all out war will break out and the technology will be lost, then found again hundred of years later by murakumo mellinium causing another war which will esclate to the point where people are forced to leave for mars or be forced to live underground under direct rule of a computer called the controller which will start to malfunction it will be destroyed releasing underground citizens to the surface of the earth who will spread across it only to be stopped at the silent line an area where all construction is blowed up by a satilite which more people in mech suits will have to go and break some more omipotent computers which will bring a short time of peace which is stopped by Navis discovering a lost murakumo technology facility releasing thousands of suicide bombing drones which will attack the cities leaving the world in disrepair. finally teh peoples in the mech suits will divide into two groups "vertex" the group that oposes the corporations that put everyones lives in danger and "alliance" the group that is supporting the corporations that are rebuilding the planet while discovering some more life endangering tech finally leaving the world with three dead defunct corporations and one last person in a mech suit to rebuild the world.

any body get this.