After over 50 years of near-standstill, renal medicine is ready for major technological leaps. With microelectronics & nanotechnology as powerful ingredients.
Around 10 percent of the world’s population has some form of Chronic Kidney Disease (CKD). Most often, this goes unnoticed in the early stages. When the affliction becomes more severe, a patient may reach what is called end-stage kidney disease or ESKD. The present renal replacement therapies for ESKD are dialysis and/or a kidney transplant.
Chronic dialysis patients must schedule their life around their therapy. Unfortunately, current dialysis technologies:
It’s no wonder that millions of people are yearning for new solutions that enhance their quality of life. Moreover, the International Society for Nephrology (ISN) and the WHO estimate that about 75% of people who need a kidney transplant or dialysis don’t even have access to the existing means of therapy.
Lower costs, higher portability and better functionality are all needed. A bio-hybrid or fully implantable artificial kidney would be a ground-breaking alternative to renal replacement therapies.
The artificial kidney was one of the most exciting medical advances in the first decades after the Second World War. But since then, renal dialysis technology has barely changed. What are the reasons for this standstill in innovation?
The answer to these challenges lies in increased cooperation to actively stimulate innovation. This is why the Kidney Health Initiative (KHI) – a public-private partnership that unites patients, health professionals, research organizations and industry – developed an international innovation roadmap for new approaches to renal replacement therapy (RRT).
Imec is a KHI member and is involved in the ongoing actualization of this roadmap by sharing its decades of experience in technology road mapping within semiconductor technology with the renal community.
While the developments in renal replacement technology slowed down, the semiconductor industry boomed. Electronic devices have become cheaper, smaller and more powerful – up to the point where we all have a computer in our pockets.
This reduction in price and size of electronics also led to the development of connected health solutions: wearable, ingestible or implantable devices that:
It’s evident that such technologies offer significant benefits to renal care. For instance, unobtrusive wearable devices can collect longitudinal multiparameter data to facilitate earlier diagnosis and help adhere to a healthier lifestyle.
At imec, we envision developing a fully implantable artificial kidney. It would run on normal blood pressure, requiring no external pumps – just like a natural kidney. The bioartificial kidney would have:
Such an implantable solution would provide the patients with more physiological and continuous therapy. This is opposed to present therapies where patients have restricted freedom regarding lifestyle, diet and movement.
One of the key components we’re currently working on is a high-selectivity filter, which can efficiently filter and purify blood. Using imec’s state-of-the-art cleanroom fabrication technologies, we design and develop nanoporous hemofilters for artificial kidneys.
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