For the past 20 years, Victor Gura, MD, FASN, an associate clinical professor of medicine at the Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA, has been working on a wearable artificial kidney, or WAK. Gura has been through multiple iterations – from prototype 1.0, which weighed over 200 pounds, to prototype 2.0, which weighed 11 pounds and was tested in clinical trials in Italy, London, and Seattle, to the latest version, WAK 3.0. Weighing in at just 2 pounds and powered by a rechargeable battery, WAK 3.0 was issued patent number 10,993,183 for a combination wearable and stationary dialysis system.
The description of the device given for the patent states that WAK 3.0 a hemodialysis system that can be configured into two dialysis systems – the first can be attached to a belt and worn around the waist of the patient during the day for continuous filtration, while the second would be stationary at night to provide the patient with more thorough dialysis treatment.
While the third generation of the WAK is in trial stages, Gura hopes it will prove that the portability of the machine, which runs on a rechargeable battery, and to show that dialysis can be done anytime and anywhere, allowing patients more mobility in their day-to-day lives.
For information on the artificial kidney and clinical trial, you can read the full article on Healio’s website: https://www.healio.com/news/nephrology/20210511/us-issues-patent-for-wearable-artificial-kidney
