Communications of the ACM
Computer Kidney Could Provide Safer Tests for New Medications
Anita Layton at the University of Waterloo in Canada led the development of the first computational model of the human kidney.
Credit: meltwater.com
Anita Layton at the University of Waterloo in Canada has led the development of the first computational model of the human kidney to enable scientists to more deeply explore kidney function and how new medications may work, without resorting to invasive procedures.
Layton said the new model replaces earlier models based on rodent kidneys.
She explained, "Certain drugs are developed to target the kidney while others have unintended effects on the kidney, and computer modeling allows us to make long-term projections of potential impacts, which could increase patient safety."
The model's development involved incorporating anatomic and hemodynamic data from the human kidney into the published computational model of a rat kidney.
Layton's team adjusted key transporter data to make the predicted urine output consistent with known human values, and identified a set of compatible transport parameters that returned model predictions consistent with human urine and lithium clearance data.
From University of Waterloo News (CA)
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