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In 2012, about 16,487 people received kidney transplants in the USA whereas 95,022 candidates were on the waiting list at the end of the year. Moreover, more than 2,600 kidneys procured annually for transplantation are discarded for a variety of reasons. We hypothesize that this pool of discarded kidneys could in part meet the growing, urgent need for transplantable kidneys using current methods for organ bioengineering and regeneration and surgical transplantation. The recellularization of extracellular matrix (ECM) scaffolds has the potential to meet the uniquely ambitious engineering challenges posed by complex solid organs such as the kidney. Attempts to manufacture and implant simpler, hollow structures such as bladders, vessels, urethras, and segments of the upper airways have been successful in the short and mid terms. However, the bioengineering of complex solid organs …