MedicalResearch.com Interview with: James J. Yoo, M.D., Ph.D. Professor, Institute for Regenerative Medicine Office of Women in Medicine and Science Physiology & Pharmacology Translational Science Institute Wake Forest School of Medicine Winston-Salem, NC Medical Research: What are the main findings of the study? Dr. Yoo: Our research is part of a long-term effort to engineer replacement kidneys in the lab to help solve the shortage of donor organs. In this particular report, we worked with human-sized kidneys and developed a method to help keep blood vessels in the new organs open and flowing with blood. Until now, lab-built kidneys had been rodent-sized and functioned for only one or two hours after transplantation because blood clots developed. Our method to minimize clot formation involved two steps. First, we identified the most effective way to coat the vessels of the kidney scaffold with endothelial cells. We found that infusing cells with a syringe, followed by a period of pumping cells through the vessels at increasing flow rates, was most effective. Next, we looked for a way to ensure that the cells we introduced actually stayed in the vessels and did not wash away when blood flow was initiated. For this, we coated the vessel walls with an antibody to make them bind the endothelial cells. (more…)