Chronic Kidney Disease and Stem Cell Therapy
Video Source: IV-1
Chronic Kidney Disease:
The kidneys play an instrumental role in keeping your body healthy. They prevent the buildup of waste materials in the bloodstream, and stabilize electrolyte levels in the body.
With Chronic Kidney Disease (CKD), the kidney's gradually lose their function and begin to fail, and when chronic kidney disease reaches more advanced stages, dangerous levels of fluid, electrolytes and wastes can build up in your body.
Application:
While no current treatment using regenerative medicine exists, research is currently underway in hopes that stem cells can treat patients with CKD.
Recently, scientists have been able to use induced pluripotent stem cells to produce kidney cells that resemble the kidney cells found in embryos. These cells could have the potential to make the glomerulus and tubules, the building blocks of the nephron (a functional unit of the kidney).
