It is said that medical expenses due to renal failure amount to 1 trillion yen every year, and the number of dialysis patients continues to increase.Due to the limited opportunities for kidney transplantation, there is a need to establish a technique for regenerating kidneys from iPS cells.Although it was considered extremely difficult to make a kidney even as research on regenerative medicine progressed, in 2013 Professor Nishinakamura and his colleagues succeeded in making a three-dimensional kidney structure from human iPS cells in vitro.

　Many kidney disorders cause abnormalities in the glomerulus, which filters urine from the blood.Therefore, this time, we analyzed the glomerulus of the kidney created by the examiner in detail.This proved that the genes required for the glomerulus to function are also spoken in the regenerated kidney.Furthermore, when this kidney was transplanted into a mouse, it was found that the blood vessels derived from the mouse were taken up into the glomerular body by the action of the gene mentioned.I was also able to observe how the blood was actually filtered.In the future, it will be necessary to look at how mature the entire kidney will be by making longer-term observations.Since there is no urine drainage channel at this stage, it may not lead to full-scale urine production.Also, although the blood vessels derived from mice were connected to the glomerulus, they need to be replaced with blood vessels derived from humans.It will take some time to resolve these issues, but we are one step closer to kidney regeneration.

　In addition, beforeJikei University School of Medicine succeeded in regenerating kidneys that can urinateI dealt with the news.As many research groups solve slightly different challenges, combining them may help achieve kidney regeneration unexpectedly quickly.