Title | Bioengineered Lungs Grown in a Lab Successfully Transplanted Into Living Pigs | |
Date | Friday August 03 2018, @02:02AM | |
Author | mrpg | |
Topic | ||
from the fresh-hope dept. |
Submitted via IRC for AndyTheAbsurd
In the US alone, more than 1,400 people are waiting for a lung transplant - there simply aren't enough donor lungs available to meet the need. Soon, though, patients might have a new source for brand new lungs: the lab.
[...] To grow the lungs, the researchers first created four lung scaffolds. To do this, they removed all of the cells and blood from pig lungs using a mix of sugar and detergent. This left them with just the proteins of each lung - essentially, its skeleton.
Next, they placed each scaffold in a tank containing a special mix of nutrients. They then added cells from recipient pigs' own lungs to each of the scaffolds and let the lungs grow for 30 days. Finally, they transplanted the four lab-grown lungs into the four recipient pigs.
Within two weeks, the transplanted lungs had already begun to establish the robust networks of blood vessels they need to survive.
Source: Bioengineered Lungs Grown in a Lab Successfully Transplanted Into Living Pigs
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