Top 5 Medical BREAKTHROUGHS of 2020
Hello, this is Katherine welcome to 00Kidney.
2020 will be a very significant year for people suffering from kidney disease.
We have never been so close to several medical breakthroughs that will forever alter human history.
What if someone with end stage renal disease could still get an organ from a donor relative even if the twos are not compatible?
What if an app could turn your cellphone into a testing lab for kidney disease?
And what if 3d printed organs could solve the shortage of kidneys for transplantation once and for all?
If you think that this is science fiction, take a look at this: this is a real 3d printed organ, ok, it’s not a kidney, it’s an heart… and it’s even beating by its own!
this is not a rendering generated by a computer, it’s something that some amazingly bright doctors and researchers have been working on and that could change the lives of millions of people, especially those suffering from kidney disease.
In 2020 medicine may make all this possible for kidney disease patients, and more.
So get ready to see all the MIND-BLOWING medical breakthroughs you might just see in 2020!
This and more in today’s video! Ready to see which treatments are around the corner?
Number 5 is…
3d printed organs
Scientists today are really close to growing functional 3d printed organs and kidneys for transplant in the lab.
But the biggest remaining challenge has been creating the fine networks of blood vessels required to keep them alive.
Especially the functioning units of the human kidney, the nephrons, seems pretty difficult to replicate.
Now researchers have shown that a common food dye could solve the problem.
Incredible.
Before we look at this breakthrough, let’s understand a little bit better the technology behind 3d printed human organs.
only in the US, more than 100,000 people are currently waiting for an organ on one of those endless transplant waiting lists. If you are one of them you may know very well what I’m talking about.
The other problem with organ transplant is rejection. This is not an if, it’s a when type situation.
All the transplanted organs go through a rejection process, and this is why after an organ transplant, you will need to take anti-rejection drugs for the lifetime of your transplanted organ.
These drugs are there to prevent your immune system from attacking the donor organ.
That’s why scientists have long dreamed of growing new organs from patients’ own cells, which could at the same time tackle the organ shortage and the risk for rejection.
Just imagine this for a second: instead of having to wait years for a kidney that your body will eventually reject anyway, you could just ask your doctor to get you a custom-built-one that will last you a lifetime.
Now, the field of tissue engineering has seen plenty of progress. Lab-grown skin has been medically available for decades, and more recently stem cells have been used to reproduce more complex biological tissue.
Perhaps the most exciting development, though, has been the introduction of 3D printing technology, which promises to bring incredible breakthroughs in the field of lab grown organs.
Yes, just like this plastic model that I’ve just 3d printed with my own printer in my garage.
The only difference is that they are working to print real, working organs.
So-called bioprinters are already being used to create organelles for scientific research, and there have been some impressive proof of concept for full organs.
Now, I’ll show you something really incredible.
Take a look
This is an actual mini-heart, beating on its own.
Researchers from the Wyss Institute at Harvard University have already proven that they are capable of 3d printing organs with functionality similar to those in the human body.
The 1.5-centimetre mini-heart kept beating on its own for more than a week.
The team, 3D-printed this mini organ using heart derived cells as ink.
These cells were arranged in the heart-like structure that you see here.
Now, as you can see, this mini heart is actually beating by itself, mimicking the key features of a human heart.
But how did they do it? This technology is called 3D bioprinting.
Just like consumer grade 3d printers, where plastic material is deposited in layers forming the structure we want, 3D bioprinting uses a typical layer-by-layer 3D printing method.
Main difference is that they’re using bioinks or biomaterials to create 3D tissues or structures used for medicine or tissue engineering.
Today, while most organs are still in the early stages of development, 3D bioprinting has already demonstrated some success, especially in the area of skin and bone.
Now, about the breakthrough I was mentioning earlier.
Of the potential 3D printed organs for transplant, a 3D printed kidney is one of the most difficult. That’s because of the complexity of the organ’s structure, which is necessary for its function.
Researchers at Harvard developed a novel printing method that uses ‘inks’ consisting of kidney cells.
Thanks to this novel ink, the research group has been able to recreate part of the nephron, the functional unit of the kidney. Incredible.
The nephron is responsible for filtering the blood and it’s what gives the kidney all its functionalities. With this achievement, the field of 3D printed organs for transplant is a lot closer now to creating a functional kidney.
There’s still a long way to go before this technique could be used to print entire organs, but the approach overcomes one of the major barriers standing in the way.
Incredible, isn’t it? This something that could completely change our future.
Now, the more people know about this the faster the progress. So send this video to anyone you know who could be interested in one of the biggest medical breakthroughs we could see in this decade.
And this was our number 5. The other 4 breakthroughs on our list are even more incredible.
Ready to see them?
Number 4 is an app on your phone.
The App that tests you for kidney disease
Wouldn’t it be great if there was a way to get tested for kidney disease ‘as simple as taking a selfie’?
Well, this is what a digital health startup from Israel promises.
Everyone with kidney disease knows this: an early detection for kidney disease is as important as hard to obtain. And it makes an enormous difference in avoiding complications from kidney disease.
But unfortunately kidney disease shows no symptoms until it is in the advanced stages, making early detection really uncommon.
Now this all can change: with this innovative app, getting tested for kidney function would be as easy as taking a selfie. But how does it work?
According to the National Kidney Foundation, 30 million Americans have chronic kidney disease.
30 million. That’s 1 in 9 adults.
More than 510,000 kidney patients are now on dialysis, and over 100,000 are on the kidney transplant list.
I always talk about these numbers because they are so incredible.
The worst part is that so many of these cases of kidney disease could have been prevented, if only diagnosing this disease wasn’t so hard.
But this disease has no symptoms until it’s in an advanced stage and the only way to get an early detection is to trough a series of lab tests.
To face this problem, an Israeli digital health start-up called Healthy.io has developed this incredible app to test people for protein in the urine.
Let’s consider that protein in the urine is basically the first sign of damage to the kidneys.
So people who are at risk for kidney disease, like those suffering from hypertension or diabetes, will be able to get tested in a very easy way.
This new urinalysis test uses disposable strips, just like an at-home pregnancy test.
The difference is that it also needs a smartphone camera to read and interpret results.
Patients dip a stick in a self-collected urine sample, wait for it to develop, and take a picture of it against a card using the company’s app. The image is anonymized and put on the cloud for more detailed diagnostic tests.
According to the firm producing this test, it was cleared by the FDA and considered substantially equivalent to lab-based testing.
Its use is actually authorized by healthcare professionals at the point of care.
So the regulatory clearance makes it possible for pharmacies, urgent care centers, and health clinics to perform the test.
Today, Healthy.io’s products are already available in Israel and the U.K.
And our number 3 is… a new regenerative medicine that promises to help improving kidney health using a low frequency electromagnetic field.
And it is
PEMF
What is PEMF?
It stands for Pulsed Electromagnetic Field. Devices that use this technology emit electromagnetic waves at different frequencies with the aim of stimulating and encouraging the body’s natural recovery process.
This technology is not completely new, it has even been used by NASA to help mitigate bone loss and muscle atrophy in astronauts.
Now, maybe you’re wondering how PEMF technology can benefit your body when other electromagnetic fields – like those produced by microwaves and x-ray machines – are harmful.
According to PEMF expert Dr. Gary Ryan, known as “The Energy Doctor”, and I’m quoting,
“frequency and duration make all the difference.” The waves created by PEMF devices occur in brief bursts and are very low-frequency, like the electromagnetic waves found in nature.
He also claims that these low frequency waves are able to alleviate symptoms like pain, fatigue and EVEN INFLAMMATION.
Now, the part about inflammation, in my opinion, is really interesting for people suffering from kidney disease.
A developer of non-invasive Electromagnetic Field treatments called Endonovo Therapeutics Inc is actually starting a pre-clinical study to assess the therapeutic potential of this technology in preventing and reversing inflammation and fibrosis in kidney disease.
The study is the first of several currently planned studies targeting inflammatory pathologies of renal origin, including acute kidney injury and diabetic nephropathy.
This is what the CEO of the company says about the technology:
” kidney disease has a strong inflammatory component and our aim is to demonstrate the anti-inflammatory and anti-fibrotic properties of our non-invasive technology. Reversing inflammation in the kidneys that can cause injury, fibrosis and ultimately end-stage renal disease would represent a truly game changing application of bioelectronic medicine”
Well, this is actually wonderful… but what’s the catch?
Today, this technology has produced some results in reducing pain and inflammation, but unfortunately there are very few serious studies about it.
There is however, a randomized, double-blind, sham-controlled clinical trial that shed some light on the real effectiveness of this therapy.
Patients with either chronic pain or inflammatory pain were exposed to a PEMF through a portable device fitted to their head during twice-daily 40 min treatments over seven days.
So basically in this study some patients with chronic pain were given this PEMF treatment while others were given a fake treatment, to see if PEMF was actually working or if it was just placebo effect.
The result? An effect of PEMF over the fake treatment was noticed in patients with chronic pain, and this effect was significant enough to be recorded.
So the treatment can actually work, at least to treat chronic pain.
You can read the study by yourself, if you like, the link is in description.
The only problem with this study is that it was done on very few people.
But, according to the researchers,
“PEMF may be a novel, safe and effective therapeutic tool for use in at least certain subsets of patients with chronic, nonmalignant pain.
To put it in other words, this treatment may work to treat pain, and when appropriately researched there’s even a chance that it will be able to help people with kidney disease.
Let’s keep our fingers crossed.
Now, our number 2 is even more interesting, because it is something that’s already in place to help people suffering from end stage renal failure.
Actually, this could change the lives of a lot of people in need for a kidney transplant.
It’s the kidney SWAP PROGRAM or Paired Kidney Exchange.
What is a Paired Kidney Exchange and how is it helping people in need of a kidney transplant to find compatible organ donors?
It’s really difficult for people in need of a kidney to find a compatible donor, and this is something that can help bridge the gap.
If you are in need of a kidney or if you know someone who has tried to donate a kidney to a relative or to a friend, you may already know how difficult it is to go through this process.
Actually, even if you have someone who wants to give you a kidney or to whom you may want to give a kidney to, there’s no guarantee that in the end the donor and the intended recipient will be a “match”.
The blood type can be already an insurmountable barrier. If there’s no compatibility, there’s no match. But there are many other issues that can also affect a donor’s compatibility, making things even harder.
To overcome those problems, an increasing number of kidney donors and recipients are turning to paired kidney exchange.
A paired kidney exchange, also known as a “kidney swap” occurs when a living kidney donor is incompatible with the recipient, and so exchanges kidneys with another donor/recipient pair.
Let’s see an example.
here
In this example, we have two donors and two recipients.
Donor 1 and recipient 1, husband and wife are not compatible because of the blood type.
So they exchange kidneys with donor 2 and recipient 2, brother and sister.
This way wife 1 INDICARE would get a kidney from sister 2 INDICARE, since they’re compatible.
And brother 2 would get a kidney from husband 1.
So basically A paired exchange allows would-be recipients with willing yet incompatible donors-like a spouse or brother-to match up with other donor-recipient pairs in the same situation.
So, a kidney paired donation transplant enables two incompatible recipients to receive healthy, more compatible kidneys.
It also helps other individuals who would otherwise continue to wait for a matched donor.
All medically eligible donor/recipient pairs may participate in the paired kidney exchange program.
Now, this may look really easy on the paper, but it doesn’t work at all if there aren’t enough donors on recipients in the pool.
So, in my opinion, even if it’s not totally a news, it still worth talking about this program and letting more people know.
Actually, this programs is still expanding and growing exposure and awareness of this donation option has largely driven the increase.
Time for our number 1 now!
The artificial implantable kidney, developed from The Kidney Project team at the University of California San Francisco, has just achieved a key milestone during preclinical trials!
They are working on a device that could eliminate the need for dialysis, since it would be able to perform the same function of a human kidney.
Scientists have successfully implanted a prototype kidney bioreactor containing functional human kidney cells into pigs without significant safety concerns.
“This is the first demonstration that kidney cells can be implanted successfully in a large animal without immunosuppression and remain healthy enough to perform their function. This is a key milestone for us,” said Kidney Project co-lead Shuvo Roy
To know everything about the artificial implantable kidney watch this video now!
Thank you for watching, see you there.
About the Author
Michaelw Hi, my name is Michael and in this blog I'm gonna share the story of how I got off kidney dialysis for good. Getting off dialysis isn't easy at all, and that's why I'm trying to help people as much as I can.
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