If readers will remember, we recently posted an article about the kidney project regarding the world’s first bionic kidney. For an explanation as to how the device works you can read about it here: The World’s First Bionic Kidney Is All Set To Replace Dialysis In Just Two Years. There are many people who may be wondering or enquiring about the project which was scheduled for human trials in late 2017. Well that date has been postponed to 2018 because of insufficient funding. The most heartwarming aspect of the entire project is the Trojan efforts of Stephanie Brummet, the project coordinator for the UCSF Kidney project who in response to the problem is taken to hiking.
Stephanie Brummett on the kidney project Facebook page describes in her blog “On March 15th, I will be leaving The Kidney Project team to pursue a lifelong goal of hiking the full length of the Appalachian Trail. The trail spans from Georgia to Maine and covers 2,190 miles. I will be dedicating my thru-hike to The Kidney Project to help the patients who've touched my life!
1 The Kidney Project team expects to have a device ready for clinical trials by early 2018
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Stephanie Brummet has been the project coordinator of the ambitious kidney project at the University of California San Francisco. The scientists involved namely doctor Shuvro Roy and nephrologist William H. Fissel had invented a bionic kidney with integrated components that will mimic the actions of a live kidney and powered by the body’s own blood pressure as it flushed blood through the device just like a real kidney.
While one of the components of the two part implantable bionic kidney called a hemofilter will enter clinical trials only in 2018, the bioreactor is still in development phase which will require $25,000 in funds to be completed. This is why Stephanie has now taken to hiking as the only way she knows to help get funds for the project. According to Stephanie “In the last three years. In that time, I've come to know thousands of kidney patients, their friends and families, all of whom have all truly changed my life”.
