Technocrat

Artificial Liver Grown

zogger
Mon Oct 30 16:31:48 -0800 2006
Health+and+Medicine.
manage

Collaborative research using umbilical cord derived stem cells has lead to what is claimed is the first artificial liver.


..."Described as a 'Eureka moment' by the Newcastle University researchers, the tissue was created from blood taken from babies' umbilical cords just a few minutes after birth."...more there

ed: this is the same research center from this earlier liver disease treatment article. Sounds like this group is doing some good work.

Artificial Liver Grown
somegeek
Mon Oct 30 23:55:31 -0800 2006
 manage
From the article:  "So far, tiny pieces of tissue, less than an inch in diameter have been created."

So.... not really a whole liver then.
Artificial Liver Grown
Andrew Diseker
Tue Oct 31 00:52:46 -0800 2006
 manage
But the good thing about liver tissue, given it's healthy, is its tendency to grow and renew itself.  So, a small section of healthy liver implanted to replace damaged tissue would grow to replace the old section and restore complete liver functions.
Artificial Liver Grown
Andrew Diseker
Tue Oct 31 00:52:52 -0800 2006
 manage
But the good thing about liver tissue, given it's healthy, is its tendency to grow and renew itself.  So, a small section of healthy liver implanted to replace damaged tissue would grow to replace the old section and restore complete liver functions.
Artificial Liver Grown
pyro9
Tue Oct 31 06:49:57 -0800 2006
 manage
More likely the real issue is that the tissue isn't vascularized appropriatly (or at all) for implantation in a patient.

However the artical points out that  even in that form, it could be used for a liver dialysis treatment to either be a bridge to liver transplant or even allow enough time for the patient's own damaged liver to recover.
Artificial Liver Grown
Improbus
Tue Oct 31 06:19:45 -0800 2006
 manage
Interesting ... now they should start working on the brain. There are thousands of politicians out there that desperately need brain implants.
 

Do you have questions about the site? Write to bruce at perens.com . List of all articles we've ever published. Source Code Developer's Documentation RSS XML Sitemap XML News Sitemap Valid XHTML 1.0 Strict Valid CSS! [Valid RSS]