US Kidney Breakthrough Stirs Nigeria Research

[ChannelsTV]

Nigeria's medical establishment says a research breakthrough in which scientists in the US were able to grow a functioning rat kidney in the laboratory is a challenge for Nigerian research community. Researchers from Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard Medical School successfully transplanted the kidney with evidence of performance close to normal in the recipient rat. Nigerian Medical Association said the research, reported in the latest edition of the journal Nature Medicine, was "heart-warming" but called for caution. The research "has the potential of offering great hope for patients suffering from chronic renal disease," said NMA president, Osahon Enabulele. He added "a lot more work still needs to be done to ascertain if it can be successfully replicated in humans. It is only then that we can say uhuru." Up to 30 million Nigerians are affected by some form of renal condition, according to experts. NMA called on the medical research community to take up the challenge of the US breakthrough by "not only replicating the study in Nigeria but even advancing it further, especially as there is greater burden of management of chronic renal disease in Nigeria and other developing countries on account of mass poverty and the poor culture of organ donation, both of which have resulted in many chronic renal failure patients either waiting endlessly on long queues for kidney donors or unable to afford the high cost of kidney transplantation." It said the government and private sector should take "active and serious interest in the funding of researches" so researchers can produce even better research findings.

Via: ChannelsTV

[Folami David]

This is something we all actually expected to happen and now its finally happened. Now its very evident that it had to