I’ve donated a few dollars to the artificial kidney program at UCSF. It always bothered me that they don’t have enough funds to run clinical trials and are always looking for donations to continue research. Since the government spends so much Medicare money on dialysis, I thought it would be a high priority to fund artificial kidney research. Maybe there is not much focus since only a small percentage of dialysis patients are eligible for transplants; some are so sick that the procedure will probably kill them.
Here is more info on the UCSF program:
Life with chronic diseases 