Fissell Microchip for Artificial Kidney

In a soda-can sized container, engineers at Vanderbilt University have placed fifteen computer chips and a slurry of live kidney cells to create a prototype for an implantable artificial kidney (powered by the patient’s heart). This piece doesn’t describe how the microchips actually work as filters, nor does it say how the device can inhibit blood clotting, but there is enough smoke here to assume something is burning, and the developers are looking ahead to human pilot studies late next year. MORE

Image Credit: Dr. William Dissell, Vanderbilt Research News