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How artificial kidneys and miniaturized dialysis could save millions of lives

After decades of slow progress, researchers are exploring better treatments for kidney failure — which kills more people than HIV or tuberculosis.
  1. Charlotte Huff

    1. Charlotte Huff is a science journalist based in Fort Worth, Texas.

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A patient wearing a ventilator mask sits in a chair between two large blue dialysis machines covered in tubes and wires

Kidney dialysis is inefficient and exhausting for patients such as this person in Yemen. Credit: Mohammed Huwais/AFP/Getty

From the start, Mat Risher swore that dialysis wouldn’t upend his life. He had been working at a software company, conducting research on a car-racing simulator, when kidney damage from lupus forced him to start the blood-filtering treatments three times a week.

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Nature 579, 186-188 (2020)

doi: https://doi.org/10.1038/d41586-020-00671-8

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