Naked Science Forum

Life Sciences => Physiology & Medicine => Topic started by: thedoc on 08/01/2015 01:30:01

Title: Can you clone kidneys?
Post by: thedoc on 08/01/2015 01:30:01

Diana Wangberg asked the Naked Scientists:
   
My daughter, Julie, is 30 and has a 3 year old daughter. Julie has polycystic kidney disease. Could you clone her new kidney's?

What do you think?

Title: Re: Can you clone kidneys?
Post by: CliffordK on 08/01/2015 06:14:27

There has been a target to clone organs for quite some time. 

Apparently just recently an animal study has successfully cloned kidneys using other non-kidney tissue, and re-implanted it in the donor. (http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-97207/Kidney-breakthrough-end-need-donors.html)

Perhaps a little optimistic, but they're expecting to begin human trials quickly.

The advantage of cloned tissue is that it would be 100% compatible, and would not require anti-rejection drugs.

The bad thing is that it may be subject to the same disease conditions that led to the original failed organ.  So, your daughter would probably not qualify for the initial trials. 

Now, there are apparently two different types of polycystic kidney disease.  Autosomal Dominant is the more common form (probably having some family history), and Autosomal Recessive is less common (potentially with no family history, and the granddaughter is likely a disease free carrier).

This may actually be very important for the development of a "clone".  For the dominant form, one has to delete a gene, and it may be somewhat difficult to do.  On the other hand, for the recessive form, one simply needs to add the missing gene, and it may be a very simple process (with some testing, of course). 

So, even though it is less common, I would expect the development of disease-free clones for autosomal recessive patients to occur several years before the technique is used in for the autosomal dominant patients, and potentially within a year or two after the initial trials of cloned kidneys.

Maybe editing dominant genes will be coming soon. 
http://newsoffice.mit.edu/2013/editing-the-genome-with-high-precision-0103

Although, is this in bacteria?  Nonetheless, there is work with very precise gene editing technologies.