The potential to eliminate the need for dialysis in the future, Israel’s Sheba Medical Center said Israel researchers have discovered a method to rejuvenate kidneys.
In a study published in the journal Cell Reports, researchers from the center showed that it is possible to rejuvenate the kidneys and improve their function using the patient’s own stem cells.
Previously, it was found that the adult kidney can constantly renew itself over time through the activity of colonies of cells that function to replace lost and degenerated cells in the kidney.
In the current study, the team developed a new technology that allows the extraction of such healthy kidney cells from diseased kidneys.
These cells are expanded into large numbers within a laboratory environment, and by the generation of three-dimensional cultures called `kidney spheres’, they show improved function to generate new kidney tissue and replace lost cells.
The cells are administered into the kidney, allowing them to rebuild it, positively influence neighboring cells and improve the kidney’s function.
However,the newly developed technology relies on the patient’s own cells, it circumvents problems associated with immune rejection. This treatment, successfully tested on mice, resulted in improved renal function in the treated mice. The results are expected to be further studied in clinical trials in patients with renal failure.
Angola is seeking other countries’ help to recover state funds lost because of corruption, Minister of State for Economic Coordination Manuel Jose Nunes Junior said on Tuesday.
Angolan President Joao Lourenco said on taking office in 2017 that he would crackdown on graft and reform the economy.
“We are activating all the legal, judicial and diplomatic measures to ensure the repatriation of those resources,” Nunes Junior said at Chatham House think tank in London.
He declined to say which countries the government had contacted. “We are requesting international cooperation to support this process, to help us look into the cases of corruption we already identified or the ones we have not found yet,” he said.
Sub-Saharan Africa’s third-largest economy is ranked as one of the world’s most corrupt nations, in 165th place on a list of 180 countries, according to anti-corruption group Transparency International.
Scrutiny of Angola has increased since the authorities seized the domestic assets of former first daughter Isabel dos Santos, accusing the billionaire and her husband of steering payments of more than $1 billion from state oil company Sonangol and official diamond trading group Sodium to companies where they held stakes.
Dos Santos and her husband have denied wrongdoing. Dos Santos has told Reuters the allegations against her are “completely unfounded” and accused the authorities of a “witch hunt”.
Portuguese authorities said they had started investigating leaked documents concerning dos Santos’s business empire, and Portuguese bank Eurobic said it had decided to end commercial relationships with entities she control
Angola’s minister of mineral resources and petroleum, Diamantino Azevedo, added that his country had enlisted the help of international accounting group Deloitte to list 30% of Sonangol in the next two years after slashing its non-core businesses, which he called an “octopus”.
