Vanderbilt University Medical Center nephrologist and associate professor of medicine William H. Fissell IV, MD, is making major progress on an implantable artificial kidney. The device uses microchip filters and living kidney cells that will be powered by a patient’s own heart.
Fissell has been working on the implantable artificial kidney for more than a decade with University of California San Francisco bioengineer Shuvo Roy, PhD. In November 2015, the National Institutes of Health awarded a four-year, $6 million grant to the investigators to develop the implantable artificial kidney. In 2003, the project attracted its first NIH funding, and in 2012 the Food and Drug Administration selected the project for a fast-track approval program.
