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University of British Columbia successfully  developed enzymes that  converted a kidney to universal type O for transplant, marking a major step toward faster, more compatible organ donations. Originally published in The University of British Columbia  site by Erik Rolfsen on October 3, 2025 The kidney, pre-transplant, in a perfusion device which is used to circulate a solution that contains the converting enzymes. Source: Nature Biomedical Engineering. The first successful human transplant of a kidney c onverted from blood type A to universal type O used special enzymes developed at the University of BritishColumbia to help prevent a mismatch and rejection of the organ. Published in Nature Biomedical Engineering , the achievement marks a major step toward helping thousands of patients get kidney transplants sooner . In a first-in-human experiment , the enzyme-converted kidney was transplanted into a brain-dead recipient with consent from the family, allowin...

 Originally published in Frontiers on May 10, 2023 Credit: Unsplash/CC0 Public Domain Finding, cultivating, and bioengineering organisms that can digest plastic not only aids in the removal of pollution, but is now also big business. Several microorganisms that can do this have already been found, but when their enzymes that make this possible are applied at an industrial scale, they typically only work at temperatures above 30°C. The heating required means that industrial applications remain costly to date, and aren't carbon-neutral. But there is a possible solution to this problem: finding specialist cold-adapted microbes whose enzymes work at lower temperatures. Read more