Posted on 07/14/2010 1:29:07 PM PDT by NormsRevenge
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – U.S. researchers have created a primitive artificial lung that rats used to breathe for several hours and said on Tuesday it may be a step in the development of new organs grown from a patient's own cells.
The finding, reported in the journal Nature Medicine, is the second in a month from researchers seeking ways to regenerate lungs from ordinary cells.
In the latest study, Harald Ott and colleagues at Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard Medical School in Boston removed the cells from rat lungs to leave a scaffolding or matrix.
They soaked these in a bioreactor along with several types of human lung cells, creating pressures to simulate the pressure inside a body to make the lung workable and flexible.
The cells took up residence and grew into different tissue types seen in a lung, Ott's team reported.
When transplanted into rats, they worked for about six hours, although imperfectly.
The researchers said it may be possible to try the experiment with more immature stem cells, the body's master cells. These could include embryonic stem cells, which can mature into any cell type in the body, or induced pluripotent stem cells - ordinary cells with genes added to make them behave like flexible stem cells.
The potential market is large and dozens of companies are launching into regenerative medicine, as are academic labs like those at Harvard.
(Excerpt) Read more at news.yahoo.com ...
“The researchers said it may be possible to try the experiment with more immature stem cells, the body’s master cells. These could include embryonic stem cells...”
It may also be possible to turn a promising experiment into a quick way to give rats lung cancer!
/johnny
Everytime you get around to building a better mousetrap, they go to designing tougher rodents.
If it breathes in rats, what does it breathe out?
Hey, at least some species benefits from Obamacare.
Good one!
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