An international team of scientists from Canada and China has created a universal kidney that could be given to any patient regardless of their blood type. The test organ was transplanted into a brain-dead recipient with the family’s consent. It survived and functioned for days.
“This is the first time we’ve seen this play out in a human model,” said biochemist Stephen Withers, from the Univ. of British Columbia (UBC). “It gives us invaluable insight into how to improve long-term outcomes.”
Just like needing the right blood type for a transfusion, you need a kidney to match the recipient’s blood type. Otherwise, the body will reject it. There are currently ways to “train” the body to not reject the organ. But it’s impractical, imperfect, expensive and time-consuming. Now, by using an enzyme that strips antigens from the organ, researchers have found a way to convert a type A kidney into a type O kidney — which is the universal donor.
“It’s like removing the red paint from a car and uncovering the neutral primer,” said Dr. Withers. “Once that’s done, the immune system no longer sees the organ as foreign.”
“The actual process for conversion is very simple… This technology could indeed be easily implemented worldwide once, of course, it has received proper regulatory approval after considerable further testing,” said Dr. Jayachandran Kizhakkedathu of UBC.
The traditional way of bridging the compatibility gap between an organ and the recipient uses immunosuppressants. Changing the organ instead of trying to alter the patient could lead to fewer complications, according to the researchers.
In the human test with the brain-dead recipient, the organ was well-tolerated for two days. On day three, there was some antigen regeneration—meaning it was converting back into a type A kidney. And it appeared that there was some immune response occurring.
But, Dr Takayuki Hirose, who didn’t work on the project but reviewed it, said, “This approach has the potential to induce tolerance, which means a patient does not need to take immunosuppressants without caring about risk of rejection. It would be a Holy Grail.”
There needs to be trials with recipients who are alive, potentially people who are beyond dialysis. That would show if having the kidney would be viable long-term. Hopefully, this could be a step forward for medicine.
