While the introductory video was playing, Wu Hao stepped off the stage to take a short break and drink some water. The makeup artist also took the opportunity to patch up his bottom.
Although the venue was air-conditioned, it could not accommodate so many people. In addition to the lecture, his back was already soaked with sweat and the makeup on his face was a little blurry.
This was a global live broadcast, so the makeup artist rushed over to touch up his makeup to ensure that his image in front of the camera was flawless.
Returning to the stage, Wu Hao quickly collected his thoughts and said: "What we are going to release next is also one of our only bionic electronic organ projects. This is the intelligent bionic electronic kidney."
"Everyone knows that the kidney is one of the most important organs in the human body. It removes and metabolizes metabolites and certain wastes and poisons in the body by producing urine. At the same time, it can also retain water and other useful substances, such as glucose
, protein, amino acids, sodium ions, potassium ions, sodium bicarbonate, etc., to regulate water, electrolyte balance and maintain acid-base balance.
In addition, the kidneys also have endocrine functions and can produce renin, erythropoietin, active vitamin D3, prostaglandins, kinins, etc., and can also be the degradation site for some endocrine hormones in the body and the target organ for extrarenal hormones.
It is precisely because of this that the kidneys have become the most important metabolic organ in the human body, which can ensure the normal metabolism of the human body and ensure that the body's circulatory system is in a normal and healthy state.
Because of this, the kidneys are also one of the organs most susceptible to disease. Every year, tens of millions of patients die from kidney disease around the world.
At present, medicine has a very mature and complete set of treatment methods for kidney diseases. However, for some severe kidney diseases, dialysis and kidney transplantation will eventually be the only option.
Moreover, the results of transplantation for most patients are actually not very satisfactory, and many patients eventually relapse and die.
Currently, for patients with severe kidney disease, medical researchers have developed dialysis equipment to assist the kidneys in completing the circulation, purification and removal function of body fluids. With the availability of this technology, patients with severe kidney disease can also use this technology.
Survive for many years.
However, because continuous dialysis is a kind of torture for patients, and dialysis cannot be performed all the time, toxins accumulate in the body, which is also a kind of damage to the patient's body.
So can we develop a micro-dialysis machine and install it into the patient's body to help the patient circulate, filter and remove body fluids at all times?
In fact, the principle of the dialysis machine sounds very simple. You can think of it as a water purifier or a pre-filter. It’s just that one filters impurities in the water, and the other filters harmful substances in the blood.
Material.
The technology in this area is actually very mature. What we need to do is to shrink it and then put it into the patient's body.
How to shrink such a large device and put it into the patient's body is the biggest problem we face. Moreover, it involves many disciplines, which also gives our scientific research team a huge test.
After repeated discussions and research with domestic and even international medical experts in nephrology, our scientific research team proposed a total of three design plans, which can also be regarded as three directions.
First of all, the first design solution is to perform extracorporeal circulation, but it is to reduce the huge dialysis equipment to a size that the patient can wear at any time. Then it can be carried around and filtered at any time for extracorporeal circulation filtration. Although it will carry one thing,
But it has little impact on the patient's normal life. And technically speaking, it is relatively easy to implement.
This solution is relatively conservative, but it is relatively feasible and easy to implement. It also has the smallest impact on patients. Our questionnaires with many patients show that patients are relatively acceptable to this approach.
"
"OK, the second design option is to engage in internal circulation, but it is not to replace the kidneys, but to assist the kidneys in performing related circulation filtration and removal work. To put it simply, a device is implanted in the kidneys, and then assists the kidneys in completing related tasks.
The cycle filtering and clearing function.
This idea is good, but the operable space is relatively small and the difficulty is relatively high. The difficulty here refers not only to the technical development difficulty of the implanted device, but also includes the difficulty of the implantation surgery, risk control in the patient's life after surgery, etc.
The kidneys are no different than other organs. They are very fragile and can easily break. It is very difficult to implant a device into such an organ. And because of the kidney disease itself, the device will undoubtedly increase its burden. This will increase the burden after the operation.
Patients may exercise even slightly strenuously, which can cause tearing, damage, etc. to the kidneys implanted with the device. So we are very cautious about this design solution."
"As for the third design option, it is more radical. According to the design team's idea, it is to get it right in one step, just like developing an intelligent bionic artificial heart to replace the patient's heart. Why can't we create an intelligent bionic electronic kidney?
to replace the patient's kidneys.
This idea is indeed bold, but it is also the most difficult from a technical perspective. The function of the kidneys is not as simple as the heart. It is very complex. But in terms of the two functions of filtering and removing harmful substances and secreting urine
, it is more difficult, and it has to be reduced to the size of a human kidney, and the weight must be strictly controlled.
This is undoubtedly a nightmare requirement for the entire research and development work.
What's more, the functions of the kidney are not limited to these. It can also secrete adrenaline, prostaglandins, kinins and other material elements. How to realize such a function is also one of the most important problems that troubles the technology research and development team.
Although the technology is very difficult, in terms of long-term development, this technology is undoubtedly the most promising.
Therefore, after some in-depth research and demonstration, we decided to abandon the second plan and focus on the research of the third plan, taking into account the technical research of the first plan.
After the unremitting efforts of our scientific research team, we finally completed the first engineering prototype of an intelligent bionic electronic kidney in May this year, and successfully passed the experiment.
Please take a look, this is our smart bionic electronic kidney in the photo. It is an engineering prototype in the scientific research stage, so it looks a bit messy and relatively large.
But in terms of function, it can already simulate most of the functions of a real kidney. Moreover, the performance in the experiment was very impressive, and the results are very gratifying."