(Press-News.org)
A USC Stem Cell-led research team has achieved a major step forward in the effort to build mouse and human synthetic kidneys. In a new paper published in Cell Stem Cell, the scientists describe generating more mature and complex lab-grown kidney structures, or organoids, than ever before.
“This is a revolutionary tool for creating more accurate models for studying kidney disease, which affects one in seven adults,” said corresponding author Zhongwei Li, associate professor of medicine, and stem cell biology and regenerative medicine at the Keck School of Medicine of USC. “It’s also a milestone towards our long-term goal of building a functional synthetic kidney for the more than 100,000 patients in the U.S. awaiting transplant—the only cure for end-stage kidney disease.”
Scientists from the Li Lab previously constructed organoids composed of nephrons, the kidney’s filtering units. They had also produced organoids resembling the kidney’s collecting ducts, which concentrate urine.
Now, led by first authors Biao Huang, Pedro Medina, and Zipeng Zeng from the Li Lab, and Jincan He from Tongji University in Shanghai, the team has successfully combined nephron and collecting duct components to produce what they have dubbed “assembloids.”
The scientists first optimized conditions for growing mouse and human assembloids in the lab. They then transplanted the mouse and human assembloids into living mice, where they further matured—growing larger, and developing connective tissue and blood vessels.
“By maturing the assembloids in the native environment of the body, we tapped into kidney progenitor cells’ natural ability to self-assemble,” said Li. “We believe this will be a key to succeeding in the complex endeavor of building functional synthetic kidneys.”
Both mouse and human assembloids exhibited kidney-like functions, such as blood filtration, the uptake of proteins such as albumin, the capacity to secrete kidney hormones, and early signs of urine production.
While previous kidney organoids only matured to an embryonic stage, the mouse assembloids achieved the same level of maturity as a newborn mouse kidney, based on gene activity and other benchmarks. Human assembloids also matured beyond the embryonic stage, although their precise maturity level could not be determined due to the lack of available newborn human kidney samples.
The study also provides a proof-of-concept that assembloids can serve as high-fidelity models for studying complex human kidney diseases. As an example, the scientists grew human assembloids from cells with a single genetic change—the loss of a functional PKD2 gene—that causes autosomal dominant polycystic kidney disease, a genetic condition where the kidneys develop multiple large cysts that impair their function. These diseased assembloids grew into large human kidney cysts in living mice and exhibited complex disease features such as inflammation and fibrosis, that could not be modeled before.
“Our study provides a powerful new tool for studying a wide range of complex kidney diseases,” said Li, “as well as strong foundation for engineering functional synthetic kidneys as a lifesaving option for the patients who need them.”
About the study
Additional authors are: Sunghyun Kim, Janet Romo, Kari Koppitch, Chennan C. Zhang, Georgina Gyarmati, Jinjin Guo, Tianyi Ma, Megan E. Schreiber, Cong Xu, Jessica Pham, Riana K. Parvez, Jackson Su, Mateo W. Xia, Danny El-Nachef, Charles E. Murry, Justin Ichida, Nils O. Lindström, Nuria M. Pastor-Soler, Kenneth R. Hallows, Janos Peti-Peterdi, and Andrew P. McMahon from USC; Yohan Park and Kurt Zimmerman from the University of Oklahoma Health Sciences Center; Ruslan Bohovyk and Alexander Staruschenko from the University of South Florida; Pierre-Emmanuel Yoann N’Guetta and Lori O’Brien from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill; Zhenqing Liu from City of Hope; Laura Perin from Children’s Hospital Los Angeles; Sanjeev Kumar from Cedars-Sinai Medical Center; and Cizhong Jiang from Tongji University in Shanghai.
70% percent of this work was supported by federal funding from the National Institutes of Health (NIH Director’s Award DP2DK135739; research grants DK054364, DK064324, DK123564, DK135290, and DK136802; and training grant T32HD060549). Additional support came from a Chan Zuckerberg Initiative seed network grant (CZIF2019-002430), the University Kidney Research Organization (UKRO), a Keck School of Medicine of USC Dean’s Pilot Award, a USC Stem Cell Challenge Award, and a California Institute for Regenerative Medicine (CIRM) Predoctoral Fellowship (EDUC4-12756).
Disclosures
McMahon is a scientific advisor or consultant for eGENESIS, Trestle Biotherapeutics, GentiBio and IVIVA Medical. Peti-Peterdi and Gyarmati are co-founders of Macula Densa Cell LLC, a biotechnology company that develops therapeutics to target macula densacells for a regenerative treatment for chronic kidney disease. Macula Densa Cell LLC has a patent entitled “Targeting macula densacells as a new therapeutic approach for kidney disease” (US patents 10,828,374 and 11,318,209). Li, Huang, Medina, Zeng, and McMahon have applied for intellectual property protection on technologies discussed here.
END
When do people behave badly? Extensive research in behavioral science has shown that people are more likely to act dishonestly when they can distance themselves from the consequences. It's easier to bend or break the rules when no one is watching—or when someone else carries out the act. A new paper from an international team of researchers at the Max Planck Institute for Human Development, the University of Duisburg-Essen, and the Toulouse School of Economics shows that these moral brakes weaken even further when people delegate tasks to AI. Across 13 studies involving more than ...
Research supported by the National Institutes of Health (NIH) shows that repeated head impacts from contact sports can cause early and lasting changes in the brains of young- to middle-aged athletes. The findings show that these changes may occur years before chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE) develops its hallmark disease features, which can now only be detected by examining brain tissue after death.
“This study underscores that many changes in the brain can occur after ...
EMBARGOED by Nature until 11 a.m. ET, September 17, 2025
Contact: Gina DiGravio, 617-358-7838, ginad@bu.edu
BU Study of Young Athletes Finds Neurodegeneration Might Begin Before CTE
These results have the potential to significantly change our perspective on contact sports.
(BOSTON) This fall, tens of millions of people will be at risk for chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE), a degenerative brain disease caused by repeated head impacts from contact sports like football, soccer, and ice hockey, or military service. Researchers have long ...
Dr. Carl F. Nathan, the R.A. Rees Pritchett Professor of Microbiology at Weill Cornell Medicine, has been awarded the David and Beatrix Hamburg Award for Advances in Biomedical Research and Clinical Medicine by the National Academy of Medicine.
Established in 2004, the prestigious award honors innovative biomedical scientists who have advanced global health with an exceptional biomedical research discovery and translation that has fundamentally enriched the scientific community’s understanding of human biology and disease, leading to a significant reduction of disease burden and improvement in ...
WASHINGTON — Researchers have developed a new type of microscope that can acquire extremely large, high-resolution pictures of non-flat objects in a single snapshot. This innovation could speed up research and medical diagnostics or be useful in quality inspection applications.
“Although traditional microscopes assume the sample is perfectly flat, real-life samples such as tissue sections, plant samples or flexible materials may be curved, tilted or uneven,” said research team ...
SAN ANTONIO —September 17, 2025 — Southwest Research Institute (SwRI) and The University of Texas at San Antonio (UT San Antonio) will flight test novel electrolyzer technology to better understand chemical processes associated with bubble formation in low gravity. Designed to solve future space mission challenges, the project, led by SwRI’s Kevin Supak and UT San Antonio’s Dr. Shrihari Sankarasubramanian, is supported by a $125,000 grant from the Connecting through Research Partnerships (Connect) program, ...
AMHERST, Mass. — University of Massachusetts Amherst researchers and scientists at Embr Labs, a Boston-based start-up, have developed an AI-driven algorithm that can accurately predict nearly 70% of hot flashes before they’re perceived. The work, featured in the journal Psychophysiology, will be incorporated into the Embr Wave, a wearable wrist device clinically proven to manage hot flashes.
In the U.S. alone, an estimated 1.3 million women transition into menopause annually, and 80% of women experience hot flashes — sudden feelings of intense heat, often radiating in the upper body. Most hot flashes occur during this transition, ...
Nearly 3 in 10 adults in the United States have experienced lower back pain in any three-month period, making it the most common musculoskeletal pain. Back pain remains one of the leading causes of disability worldwide, affecting millions and often leading to chronic discomfort, missed work and invasive procedures.
Researchers and clinicians are increasingly turning to lumbar spine modeling, which bridges engineering and medicine, creating a virtual, patient-specific model of the lower back. This technology simulates how the spine ...
A researcher at the Hackensack Meridian Center for Discovery and Innovation (CDI) and physician-scientist colleagues from Hackensack Meridian Health have shown how a critical pathway is fundamental to the immune system.
The results by Hai-Hui “Howard” Xue, Ph.D., and colleagues are published in the latest edition of Science Immunology - and could have implications in cancer immunotherapy and vaccine developments for years to come.
Establishing cellular immunity depends on the thymus, a lymph gland located in front of the heart. This gland produces and exports T cells, a workhorse white blood cell, ...
Embargoed until 7 a.m. CT/8 a.m. ET, Wednesday, Sept. 17, 2025
DALLAS, Sept. 17, 2025 — Barbara Riegel, Ph.D., R.N., FAHA, Emerita Edith Clemmer Steinbright Professor of Gerontology at the University of Pennsylvania School of Nursing, will receive the American Heart Association’s 2025 Clinical Research Prize at the Association’s Scientific Sessions 2025. The meeting, to be held Nov. 7-10, 2025, in New Orleans is a premier global exchange of the latest scientific advancements, research and evidence-based clinical practice ...
