A New Approach To Liver Transplantation In Rats Is Making Progress

A New Approach To Liver Transplantation In Rats Is Making Progress.
A novel procedure to liver transplantation is making headway in overture work with rats, researchers say. Their work at the Center for Engineering in Medicine at Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH-CEM) could in the final point the way toward engineering fresh, functioning and transplantable liver organs out of discarded liver material, the researchers suggest. The research, reported online June 13 in Nature Medicine, is just at the "proof-of-concept" stage, but the group believes it has successfully fashioned a laboratory design to persuade stripped down structural liver tissue and essentially "reseed" it with newly introduced liver cells.

The ovum cells are then coaxed to adhere to the host scaffolding, so that they become and eventually re-establish the organ's complex vascular network. Although the highly complex ability is still far from the point at which it might be applicable to humans, the prospect is hopeful news for the liver transplant community. Because of a harsh shortage of donor organs, about 4000 Americans are deprived of potentially life-saving liver transplants each year.