A backpack-size kidney-dialysis device, conceived and being developed at the University of Washington Center for Dialysis Innovation (CDI), is one of six winners of a $650,000 prize in an international competition to create components and systems for artificial kidneys.
The awards were announced today by KidneyX, a public-private partnership of the American Society of Nephrology and U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. Through a series of cash competitions, KidneyX seeks to speed drug and device development to counter the steep global growth of kidney disease, now estimated to afflict 850 million people.
Dr. Jonathan Himmelfarb, a professor of nephrology at the UW School of Medicine, accepted the award for the CDI, which he co-directs.
“This is our third win with KidneyX and the first iteration of the artificial-kidney prize,” Himmelfarb said. “There will be another phase of competition next year whose goal is an integrated system that works. Ultimately the idea is that one or more competitors will get novel systems commercialized and we’ll get these to patients to change their lives.”
The CDI is a collaboration of scientists and physicians at UW Medicine and UW Bioengineering. Himmelfarb said 30-some people are working on the CDI’s prototype artificial kidney, a device intended to free patients from thrice-weekly, hours-long visits to dialysis centers. The onerous regimen typically ends only when the patient receives a kidney transplant or dies.
