Development of hybrid scaffolds for kidney tissue engineering

  • Research type

    Research Study

  • Full title

    Development of hybrid 3D scaffolds for kidney tissue engineering by combination of human decellularized extracellular matrix and polymer

  • IRAS ID

    294292

  • Contact name

    Busra Baskapan

  • Contact email

    B.Baskapan@sms.ed.ac.uk

  • Sponsor organisation

    Institute for Bioengineering

  • Duration of Study in the UK

    1 years, 0 months, 0 days

  • Research summary

    According to Kidney Care UK 3 million people in the UK has chronic kidney diseases at an advanced level. Only treatment option for end stage renal failure is transplantation, however donor kidneys meets only one fifth of demand. This shortage causes so long waiting time for patients that every day one will die while waiting transplant. Besides, 12% of donor kidneys is deemed unsuitable for transplantation in the UK.
    Since the paucity of current treatment options for renal failure reveals a need for more reliable and effective methods for kidney diseases we aim in this project to turn this source of discarded donor kidneys into biofunctional hybrid scaffolds that could be implantable. Use of decellularized human kidney deemed unsuitable for transplant would be a promising technique to recycle excess transplant.
    This project proposes to fabricate a hybrid scaffold from decelled human kidney extracellular matrix (ECM) and synthetic polymer. ECM hosts many essential proteins that maintain homeostasis via biochemical signals within the tissue. Synthetic polymers enable to obtain cost-effective and modifiable porous scaffold. Combining these materials eliminate the disadvantages of each material such as poor mechanical properties of ECM and lack of bioactivity of polymer.
    Hybrid sacffolds will be built and renal cells behaviour on these scaffolds under different conditions will be examined. The project also aims to compare the human kidney study with our ongoing rat ECM combined with polymer so we could see the species differences.

  • REC name

    East of England - Cambridge South Research Ethics Committee

  • REC reference

    21/EE/0049

  • Date of REC Opinion

    12 Apr 2021

  • REC opinion

    Further Information Favourable Opinion