New breakthrough in bioengineering liver research

August 10, 2017 / BIOON / -- due to the shortage of liver donors, at least 1500 patients with liver diseases die each year due to the lack of suitable donors If we can make a new liver with 3D printing technology, this problem can be easily solved Unfortunately, there is no such technology Recently, however, a company called miromatrix has adopted a different strategy: they don't need to invent new technology to grow liver, but they can select the donor of liver at random and combine some technologies to prevent immune rejection Miromatrix scientists collected livers from pigs, used mild detergents to remove the active cells, then mixed these white stromal layers with human derived cells, and finally transformed the livers of pigs into functional human organs Cc0 public domain may sound like science fiction, but this idea will be put into practice this year: Mayo Clinic's researchers will remove the liver from their pigs and transfer the reconstructed liver into domestic pigs After that, the researchers will test whether the bioengineered liver can keep the host alive for more than two days The results of the experiment will be available next year, and if all goes well, the first human transplant trial will be scheduled for 2020 Although many researchers and companies are studying how to "decellularize" the liver, miromatrix uses a technology called "perfusion decellularization" In general, acellularization is achieved by immersing the organ in a special solution, but this method can only penetrate a few centimeters of tissue thickness On the contrary, "perfusion acellularization" takes mechanical means to pump the detergent into the endovascular system of organ continuously for up to two days, and the remaining matrix structure can be maintained in the low temperature environment for nearly several months Importantly, these stromal structures retain the original blood vessels, so it is easy for co cultured cells to grow along these structures According to this, Doris Taylor, the new CEO of miromatrix, said: "I believe that the company's strong leadership and the incomparable advantages of this cutting-edge technology will help miromatrix to create more successful complete organs to save the lives and health of patients around the world." Sources of information: hope high for a bioengineered River