Surgeon creates new kidney on TED stage

A surgeon specialising in regenerative medicine “printed” a real kidney using a machine that eliminates the need for donors when it comes to organ transplants.

“It’s like baking a cake,” Anthony Atala of the Wake Forest Institute of Regenerative Medicine said as he cooked up a fresh kidney on stage at a TED Conference in the California city of Long Beach.

Scanners are used to take a 3-D image of a kidney that needs replacing, then a tissue sample about half the size of a postage stamp is used to seed the computerised process, Dr Atala explained.

The organ “printer” then works layer by layer to build a replacement kidney replicating the patient’s tissue. College student Luke Massella was among the first people to receive a printed kidney during experimental research a decade ago when he was just 10 years old.

He said he was born with spina bifida and his kidneys were not working.

“Now, I’m in college and basically trying to live life like a normal kid,” said Massella, who was reunited with Dr Atala at TED.

“This surgery saved my life and made me who I am today.”

About 90 per cent of people waiting for transplants are in need of kidneys, and the need far outweighs the supply of donated organs, according to Dr Atala.

“There is a major health crisis today in terms of the shortage of organs,” Dr Atala said. “Medicine has done a much better job of making us live longer, and as we age our organs don’t last.”