Stem cell researchers from around the world are now using stem cells to create new ways to understand diseases and test possible new drugs. Join the live public webcast – ISSCR Connect – on Wednesday 16 April 2014 at 7am (AEST) to hear University of Queensland's Professor Melissa Little discuss how stem cells are being used to build mini-kidneys in the lab to provide a window into kidney disease. You can also listen on demand to this webcast at a later date.
Over the past few decades, the rates of chronic kidney disease have risen due to conditions like diabetes, hypertension, immune-mediated disease and cardiovascular disease. Stem cell researchers are now using organoids, lab-grown models of human organs, to better understand kidney disease. In the future, organoids may also provide an important test model for experimental drugs.
Professor Melissa Little, from the Institute for Molecular Bioscience at The University of Queensland, has been studying renal disease for more than 15 years and is currently using human embryonic stem cells to create tiny buds of tissue that resemble embryonic kidneys. She and her team hope to push the kidney organoids down the developmental pathway to fully functional organs, learning more about normal kidney function and development of disease on the way.
If you would like to find out more, please visit the ISSCR Stem Cell in Focus website to read a blog - Ramping Up Discovery With Kidney Organoids – about Melissa Little's research.
Melissa Little is a Chief Investigator in the Stem Cells Australia initiative.