AN ARTIFICIAL KIDNEY for KARLA

** Update **

Sadly Karla passed away on the 2nd August 2017. Thank you for your support. Any funds raised will be redistributed to her family for loss of income.

Please do what you can to increase kidney awareness for patients and their families.

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Kidney failure has not prevented 35-year-old Karla from full-time employment, home ownership, marriage, and fur babies. However, because of Karla’s lifelong condition, she and her husband have been unable to have children of their own, and have been denied the opportunity to adopt, because of the impact of continued dialysis on Karla’s lifespan.

Karla’s likelihood of receiving a live or donor list kidney is next to nothing. This is due to numerous blood transfusions over the years limiting available matches. She has been on a waiting list for over a decade, with not one match arising in that time. An implantable artificial kidney overcomes the problem of matching kidney donor to recipient.

An implantable artificial kidney is designed to perform two of the key functions of a human kidney: to filter the blood and produce urine. A successful implanted artificial kidney will release Karla from the burden of ongoing dialysis, which she has endured without a break for over twenty years.

Karla is aiming to improve her own quality of life, by eliminating the cumbersome time commitment of dialysis - currently tied to a machine for around three hours every second day. This commitment currently prevents any travel that entails being away from home for more than 48 hours. With a functional kidney, Karla and her husband can also re-apply for adoption.

This implantable artificial kidney project is still in its formative stages. In addition to the numerous benefits for herself, Karla values the contribution she can make to the research for the benefit of future kidney patients.

These trials will take place in Nashville, USA. Karla hopes to be included in the second stage of these trials, which are tentatively scheduled for late 2018.

Informative sites:

http://pharm.ucsf.edu/kidney

https://www.facebook.com/pg/ArtificialKidney/about/?ref=page_internal

If Karla is unable to go through getting an implanted artificial kidney herself for any reason, funds raised will be redistributed to compensate her family for loss of income from her extensive time on dialysis.