Vanderbilt University Medical Center nephrologist and Associate Professor of Medicine Dr. William H. Fissell IV, have bioprinted an implantable artificial kidney, with microchip filters and living kidney cells that will be powered by a patient’s own heart.
The National Institutes of Health awarded a four-year, $6 million grant to Fissell and his research partner Shuvo Roy from the University of California at San Francisco.
The two investigators are longtime collaborators on this research. In 2003, the kidney project attracted its first NIH funding, and in 2012, the Food and Drug Administration selected the project for a fast-track approval program.