After a decade of work, researchers are closer than ever to a key breakthrough in kidney organ transplants: being able to transfer kidneys from donors with different blood types than the recipients, which could significantly speed up waiting times and save lives.

A team from institutions across Canada and China has managed to create a 'universal' kidney, which can, in theory, be accepted by any patient.

Their test organ survived and functioned for several days in the body of a brain-dead recipient, whose family consented to the research.

"This is the first time we've seen this play out in a human model," says biochemist Stephen Withers, from the University of British Columbia in Canada. "It gives us invaluable insight into how to improve long-term outcomes."

As it stands today, people with type O blood who need a kidney usually have to wait for a type O kidney to become available from a donor. That accounts for more than half the people on waitlists, but because type O kidneys can function in people with other blood types, they're in short supply.

While it is currently possible to transplant kidneys of different blood types, by training the recipient's body not to reject the organ, the existing process is far from perfect and not particularly practical.

It's time-consuming, expensive, and risky, and it also requires living donors to work, as the recipient needs time to be prepped.

Here, the researchers effectively converted a type A kidney into a type O kidney, using special, previously identified enzymes that strip away the sugar molecules (antigens) acting as markers of type A blood.