Human Kidney Model to Help Predict Drug-Induced Toxicity

Kidneys are actively involved in eliminating drugs and other foreign compounds from the body. For this reason, it is important to screen the effects of possible toxic compounds on kidney cells. Scientists from the Institute of Bioengineering and Nanotechnology (IBN) in Singapore have recently developed a new platform combining cell cultures of renal cells obtained from human induced pluripotent stem cells and a machine learning algorithm. They tested the effects of 30 compounds and found that the new platform could correctly predict compound toxicity and also identify the molecular mechanisms underlying toxic effects. This tool might help speed up compound screening and the development of new treatments.