Research Summary: Lab Grown Organs

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Research Summary: Lab Grown Organs

Mar. 13, 2007
ABC7/KGO-TV/DT

ORGAN SHORTAGE: According to the United Network for Organ Sharing, more than 94,000 Americans are waiting for an organ transplant. Every 13 minutes, someone is added to that list. Transplantation has saved and enhanced the lives of more than 300,000 people in the United States, but there are not enough organs to go around. In fact, every 90 minutes, someone on the transplant waiting list dies waiting for an organ -- that's about 17 people a day.

BUILDING ORGANS IN THE LAB: Researchers from Wake Forest University Baptist Medical Center in Winston-Salem, N.C., are transforming the field of transplantation. They are actually building organs in their laboratory to implant into patients. They have implanted seven bladders into patients whose bladders were no longer functioning adequately. To build a bladder, researchers start with a bladder-shaped scaffold. Researchers then harvest cells from the patient's existing -- though failing -- bladder. The cells are grown in the lab and then transferred onto the bladder-shaped scaffold. The cells grow, divide and spread across the scaffold, creating a structure that looks and works like a normal bladder. The new bladder is then implanted into the patient, where it further develops into a functioning bladder. The custom-built bladder has been a success in all seven patients who have received one. Mark Van Dyke, Ph.D., from Wake Forest, says: "We have heard phrases like 'science fiction' and 'this stuff is just out of this world.' It's pretty normal to us ... But through talking with people who don't do this for a living, it is pretty amazing." He says he and his team are working on about 20 or 30 different organs or tissues including urethras, blood vessels and heart valves. The custom-built urethras are already in human trials.

PRINTING ORGANS: Building organs in the lab is a time-consuming process. It takes months just to build one organ. For this type of technology to go mainstream, researchers need a faster way to build lots of organs. Enter -- the bioprinter. Gabor Forgacs, Ph.D., from the University of Missouri-Columbia, has developed a way to actually print living cells into 3-D structures. It's called "bioprinting." A printer drops clumps of live cells, called "bioink", onto "biopaper", where the cells then self-assemble into the desired structure. For example, to build a tube to serve as a blood vessel, the printer drops alternating layers of biopaper and clumps of muscle and endothelial cells. Dr. Forgacs says, "Our printer prints in three dimensions. We are working with living systems, cells and tissues." This method could be faster than growing organs in a lab. Dr. Forgacs says, "Because this is an automated approach, because it relies on self-assembling properties of living materials, we don't have to build everything in such detail." The first real test was a chicken heart. Dr. Forgacs and his team "printed" the cells that form the heart, and between the fourth and fifth day, the tissue started to beat just as a heart would. Dr. Forgacs says, "It is very difficult to give you the kind of feeling that we have when this happens. It was very rewarding." Though printing tissue and organs is in the early stages of development, researchers say it is very possible the technology will be mainstream medicine in our lifetime.

Copyright 2007, ABC7/KGO-TV/DT.

Source: http://abclocal.go.com/kgo/story?section=edell&id=5119143