Miniature Human Livers Created in the Lab

[tezunegari]

Miniature Human Livers Created in the Lab

ScienceDaily (Oct. 31, 2010) — Researchers at the Institute for Regenerative Medicine at Wake Forest University Baptist Medical Center have reached an early, but important, milestone in the quest to grow replacement livers in the lab. They are the first to use human liver cells to successfully engineer miniature livers that function -- at least in a laboratory setting -- like human livers. The next step is to see if the livers will continue to function after transplantation in an animal model.

The ultimate goal of the research, which will be presented on October 31 at the annual meeting of the American Association for the Study of Liver Diseases in Boston, is to provide a solution to the shortage of donor livers available for patients who need transplants. Laboratory-engineered livers could also be used to test the safety of new drugs.

"We are excited about the possibilities this research represents, but must stress that we're at an early stage and many technical hurdles must be overcome before it could benefit patients," said Shay Soker, Ph.D., professor of regenerative medicine and project director. "Not only must we learn how to grow billions of liver cells at one time in order to engineer livers large enough for patients, but we must determine whether these organs are safe to use in patients."

Pedro Baptista, PharmD, Ph.D., lead author on the study, said the project is the first time that human liver cells have been used to engineer livers in the lab. "Our hope is that once these organs are transplanted, they will maintain and gain function as they continue to develop," he said.

To engineer the organs, the scientists used animal livers that were treated with a mild detergent to remove all cells (a process called decellularization), leaving only the collagen "skeleton" or support structure. They then replaced the original cells with two types of human cells: immature liver cells known as progenitors, and endothelial cells that line blood vessels.

The cells were introduced into the liver skeleton through a large vessel that feeds a system of smaller vessels in the liver. This network of vessels remains intact after the decellularization process. The liver was next placed in a bioreactor, special equipment that provides a constant flow of nutrients and oxygen throughout the organ.

After a week in the bioreactor system, the scientists documented the progressive formation of human liver tissue, as well as liver-associated function. They observed widespread cell growth inside the bioengineered organ.

The ability to engineer a liver with animal cells had been demonstrated previously. However, the possibility of generating a functional human liver was still in question.

The researchers said the current study suggests a new approach to whole-organ bioengineering that might prove to be critical not only for treating liver disease, but for growing organs such as the kidney and pancreas. Scientists at the Wake Forest Institute for Regenerative Medicine are working on these projects, as well as many other tissues and organs, and also working to develop cell therapies to restore organ function.

Bioengineered livers could also be useful for evaluating the safety of new drugs. "This would more closely mimic drug metabolism in the human liver, something that can be difficult to reproduce in animal models," said Baptista.

Co-researchers were Dipfen Vyas, B.Sc., Zhan Wang, M.D., and Anthony Atala, M.D., director of the institute.

The abstract, "The Use of Whole Organ Decellularization for the Bioengineering of a Human Vascularized Liver," will be presented on Oct. 31.

Just found and skimmed it. Does this count as a "Science - Fuck yeah!"?

[SirNitram]

Hurry up! I need a non-miniature one!

But this does open up alot of very interesting avenues.

[LadyTevar]

SCIENCE -- FUCK YEAH!!!


Still, it's years, if not decades, away from producing human-sized livers. However, if the process can be refined and works as promised, it could allow the growth of livers from the patient's own cells. A transplant with no rejection.

[Norade]

I will join in raising a hearty SCIENCE -- FUCK YEAH!! to this.

I'm healthy enough for now, but I must say with the way North Americas attitude towards health is trending discoveries like these may just avert crisis in the future.

[someone_else]

I join the FUCK YEAH!!! wagon.

And I add that liver is able to rebuild itself fully freking fast from pieces even 1/5 the original size.
If these guys manage to make it a little bigger, the natural regeneration kicks in and the liver builds itself. So it may be closer than you expect.

Sadly this regenerative capability is liver-only. Other organs cannot do that.

[Shinjai]

Oh, hell yes!
If the process can overcome the various technical hurdles, no longer will hospitals have to choose between long-term lifestyle based liver failure patients and disease patients to receive the limited number of donor livers. Successfully adapting the process to other organs such as the kidney would also be of immense importance, since dialysis is bloody expensive in the long term.

[Rabid]

Sadly this regenerative capability is liver-only. Other organs cannot do that.

Well, in fact, the method used also work for other organs. They already succesfuly reconstructed a beating rat's heart with a similar method :

- De-cellularization ('wash' the cells, conserve the frame of the organ made of the cells' membranes)
- Grow donors/patient cells into the frame

It is just a matter of time (a decade or two) and research (a lot !) before this method can be generalized to nearly all human organs for the general public.
But here is the basis and it looks very good indeed.

So :

SCIENCE -- FUCK'YEAH !!!

[Broomstick]

While, I, too, cheer the progress I have to wonder just how accessible this is going to be for the average person. Regrowing a liver is marvelous - but unless you can get one when you need one the process is useless. Somewhere like America, where you get only what you can pay for, the rich will get new livers and the poor will simply die. Of course, if the process comes down in price more people will have access, but unless you live in a society that provides medicine according to need rather than wealth, well, sucks to be poor.

[Edi]

JSF's trolling split to the HoS

[OsirisLord]

Hurry up! I need a non-miniature one!

But this does open up alot of very interesting avenues.

For my Bioethics class we've kind of moved onto the subject of fairness and equal distribution of resources in health care. Obviously organ donation plays a huge part in that discussion, were even countries like Italy where you have to give expressed consent NOT to have your organs harvested after death are finding themselves with more people waiting for organs then people donating them.

I wonder how organ cloning is going to worm its way into these upcoming debates. I mean obviously it's years away but this solves the problem, like, immediately.

[Broomstick]

Obviously organ donation plays a huge part in that discussion, were even countries like Italy where you have to give expressed consent NOT to have your organs harvested after death are finding themselves with more people waiting for organs then people donating them.

Even if we harvested and were able to use every organ available it would still not be enough. It's not enough to simply take them from the dead, the donor has to die in under particular conditions, in a certain proximity to the recipient, and not have a disqualifying medical condition.

That's why it's so important to research alternatives.

[someone_else]

Well, in fact, the method used also work for other organs. They already succesfuly reconstructed a beating rat's heart with a similar method

I was talking about the liver growing on its own from a tiny piece to a full-grown organ in a living human (and animal anyway).
That is a liver-only quirk. And will probably mean that you don't need to recreate a full-size liver (that is fucking huge) to have a successful implant. Even something 2-3 times bigger than this may be enough.

Other organs will have to be built the right size, give or take.

[Broomstick]

Maybe, maybe not. The typical human organ set has considerable redundancy. For example, you can survive quite with with just one lung, or even just half of one kidney. It's not recommended, but if a half-size kidney is sufficient to get someone off dialysis and ameliorate the worst problems of kidney failure then using it would be a net gain for the patient. Bone marrow transplants certainly do not transplant the normal volume of marrow found in a human body.

The heart, however, probably should be full size or darn close to it.