Tissue Engineering of Lung and Gut Sections

The first practical outcome of tissue engineering research is not therapies, but rather improved tools for further scientific work in this and other fields. At present the structured tissue sections created in the laboratory are largely too small or too dissimilar from natural organs for use in treatments, but these engineered tissues can nonetheless be very useful in drug testing, investigation of disease mechanisms, and many other aspects of medical research. Real tissue is a vast improvement over cells in a dish and animal models, and real tissue grown from patient cells is a tremendous step forward for work on genetic disorders. In the economic development of the field, the ability for companies to form and make money by providing these tools is a vital stepping stone on the way to improving the underlying technologies. That will lead in time to building whole organs to order, one step at a time.

Scientists grow 'mini-lungs' to aid the study of cystic fibrosis

Scientists have successfully created 'mini-lungs' using stem cells derived from skin cells of patients with cystic fibrosis, and have shown that these can be used to test potential new drugs for this debilitating lung disease. The research is one of a number of studies that have used stem cells - the body's master cells - to grow 'organoids', 3D clusters of cells that mimic the behaviour and function of specific organs within the body. Researchers used skin cells from patients with the most common form of cystic f...

Source: Fight Aging! - March 19, 2015 Category: Research Authors: Reason Tags: Medicine, Biotech, Research Source Type: blogs