Researchers may be one step closer to harnessing the power of stem cells to help treat, and potentially cure, kidney disease. Two new studies, both published in a recent issue of the Journal of the American Society of Nephrology, demonstrate that kidney cells can be reprogrammed to morph into other types of kidney cells needed to repair damage. In one report, scientists out of Monash University in Australia extracted kidney cells and reprogrammed them so they could behave like other kidney cells. In a second related study, researchers from the Chinese Academy of Sciences in Guangzhou, China, collected kidney cells from urine and were also able to reprogram them.
