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CUSTOM-MADE Pigs implanted with bioengineered lungs (like the one growing inside the bioreactor tank above) showed no signs of rejection after the transplant.
For the first time, researchers have created lungs in the lab and successfully transplanted them into pigs.
These bioengineered lungs, described online August 1 in Science Translational Medicine, developed healthy blood vessels that allowed pigs to live for several weeks after surgery.
If the new procedure can be adapted for humans, with bioengineered lungs grown from a patient’s own cells, that could reduce the risk of organ rejection and slash wait times for organ transplants.
For the study, immunologist Joan Nichols at the University of Texas Medical Branch at Galveston and colleagues built lungs for four pigs by first using a sugar and detergent mixture to strip the cells from lungs of donor pigs. That left sterilized, pearly white, lung-shaped scaffolds made of the intercellular proteins. The researchers then repopulated each scaffold with blood vessel and lung tissue cells from the pig destined to receive that organ.
Image: Bioengineered lungs (credit: Science News).
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