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First organ transplant from lab grown tissues |
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Written by Eric Watt
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Apr 04, 2006 at 05:18 PM |
Recent research has for the first time repaired a complex organ using tissues grown in the lab from the patients own cells. This research holds promise for future organ transplants.
There are many issues that remain with organ transplants. Suitable donors are rare, causing many people to die before they are able to get a new organ. Those that do receive treatment in time must deal with rejection issues, typically by taking drugs that lower their immune system for the rest of their life. Much of the work that has been done with stem cells has looked at growing new organs using a person's own cells. This both eliminates the need for a donor and issues with rejection, as the new organ would not be attacked by the immune system.
Recent progress has taken a large step towards this goal. A recent article (Free subscription required) discusses recent work that allowed parts of the bladder to be repaired using the tissues grown from the patient's own bladder cells. Previous treatments used tissue from gastrointestinal segments, which causes a list of complications.
A bladder biopsy was obtained from each patient. Urothelial and muscle cells were grown in culture, and seeded on a biodegradable bladder-shaped scaffold made of collagen, or a composite of collagen and polyglycolic acid. About 7 weeks after the biopsy, the autologous engineered bladder constructs were used for reconstruction and implanted either with or without an omental wrap.
It is important to note that a relatively small patient size was used and patients were from a very select group. Researchers in the field also raised some concerns over some of the data, yet concede that the methods hold promise.
Dr. Joseph Zwischenberger, who edits the journal of the American Society of Artificial Internal Organs, questioned how well the new bladders worked in the first few patients and raised a "red flag" about two patients who left the study for personal reasons and were ultimately omitted from the results. He also said Atala's attempts to commercialize the technique should add some skepticism toward the findings, which he nonetheless called "very interesting preliminary data."
Indeed, the results not only prove promising for uses in the bladder, but mark the first time a complex organ has been rebuilt in the lab. The techniques here could potentially lead to doctors constructing whole hearts, kidneys, or livers for transplant, saving the lives of many people and improving the lives of countless others.
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DOTW 