More than 100,000 patients in the U.S. are on the waiting list for a kidney transplant, and in 2015 some 17,108 people received one. This makes development of a surgically implantable, artificial kidney a potential alternative to kidney transplant or dialysis.

Progress in realizing such a device is reported in this video by Vanderbilt University Medical Center nephrologist and Associate Professor of Medicine Dr. William H. Fissell IV. He is building an implantable artificial kidney with silicon nanotechnology microchip filters and living kidney cells that will be powered by a patient’s own heart.

The artificial kidney uses a silicon microchip filter. Each bio-hybrid device will contain 15 microchips layered in series to function as filters and to serve as scaffolding to support living cells. Arterial blood flow powers the artificial kidney, and fluid dynamic analyses are applied to identify regions in the device that may be prone to clotting. Computer model results are used to refine channel morphology to achieve the smoothest flow.

Patient trials with the artificial kidney, which is being developed in collaboration with researchers from the University of California at San Francisco, could begin in late 2017.