The rapid progress of biomedical engineering has brought medicine to a stage where the synthesis of biological tissues and 3D bioprinting are becoming part of clinical practice. The traditional model of transplantation cannot cope with the shortage of donor organs and the problem of immunological tissue incompatibility with the patient’s organism. Today, the main task of regenerative medicine is the laboratory production of kidney tissues so that the global crisis caused by organ deficiency can be overcome.
Statistical Data
The acute shortage of donor organs forces medicine to search for new ways. Kidney transplantation is the most requested operation globally, although less than 10% of the actual need is satisfied. According to the Global Observatory on Donation and Transplantation (GODT), approximately 100,000 transplantations are performed worldwide annually, while millions of patients depend on dialysis. This crisis is further exacerbated by the limited vital resource of the transplanted organ and the necessity for patients to take immunosuppressants for the rest of their lives.
Against the background of the global crisis, the field of kidney transplantation in Georgia faces local, specific barriers. According to the data of the Georgian Association of Transplantologists, only 30 to 50 operations are performed in the country annually, which is a small figure compared to the actual demand. Unlike international practice, the local system is almost entirely dependent on living donors, because cadaveric donation practically does not function.
The PRINT Program
To overcome the existing crisis, the Wake Forest Institute and Rice University secured 24.8 million dollars in funding. The team of Professor Antonios Mikos, within the framework of the PRINT program, is working on an innovative model of kidney tissue bioprinting. The main task of the scientists is to create personalized tissues that will perfectly fit the patient’s organism.
The innovativeness of the method is determined by the use of personalized “bioinks,” which are made from the patient’s own cells. This technology allows for the creation of tissues equipped with a complex vascular network that integrate into the organism without immunosuppressive therapy.
Bioinks are high-tech hydrogels that are in a liquid state when emerging from the 3D printer needle, although they solidify instantaneously and create a three-dimensional “scaffold.” However, bioink is not just a supporting construction; it performs the function of an extracellular matrix that protects the patient’s cells from damage during printing, provides them with signals necessary for growth, and helps them form into real, functional tissue before implantation.
The Future of Regenerative Medicine
This large-scale research relies on the multi-year experience of Professor Mikos’s team. The project is implemented within the framework of the ARPA-H PRINT program. The initiative aims at the production of personalized organs “on demand” through the synthesis of regenerative medicine and nanotechnologies. The final goal of this innovation is to remove the necessity of artificial suppression of the immune system for patients and to return a full, healthy life to them.
Tissue engineering for Professor Mikos is a “convergent science,” a place where knowledge from various fields unites into one great goal. Based on this very principle, the project unites leading institutions, including Wake Forest, and the Universities of Maryland and Texas. This is a global intellectual collaboration against kidney diseases, which emphasizes that overcoming such a large-scale challenge is possible only by uniting forces.
However, the set goal is of unprecedented complexity: it requires a full synthesis of cell production, bioreactor design, and 3D printing technologies. The task is to create an organ that will be a functional analog of a natural kidney. The success of the mentioned project means a fundamental transformation of transplant medicine. It will lay the foundation for an era where the mode of waiting for organs and the risk of their rejection by the organism will be eliminated.
Source: Rice University
