Artificial organs have grown in history, diversity, maturity and scientific foundation since their practical origin in the Kolff rotating drum artificial kidney, introduced in 1945. Since that time, the heart lung machine, the artificial heart, liver, lung and pancreas have come into use. None has surpassed the kidney in population served, or in the variety of technologies recruited. The kidney is, by its nature, the chemical engineer's organ, and its full emulation remains a challenge still inadequately met. This presentation will concentrate on this most chemical-process-like organ with its filters, membranes, absorbers, countercurrent concentrators, reactors and control systems – as they exist in nature and as they have been approximated.

A large and persistent feature of artificial organ research and development has been its global character, nowhere more prominent than in complementary devices used in, and collaborations between, the scientific and manufacturing communities of the United States and Japan.

A vital feature of new work has been the increased emphasis on technical development explicitly for artificial organs in place of adapted technologies. Prospects for near-term technologies from both countries will be surveyed with special emphasis on nanopore membranes and microfluidic devices.