![]() These two types of structures are organized into patterns and embedded into fibrin, a tough protein normally involved in blood clotting. Working with Christopher Chen, a professor of biomedical engineering at Boston University, Bhatia’s team designed microfabricated structures that incorporate spherical “organoids” made of hepatocytes and fibroblasts, as well as cords of endothelial cells, which are the building blocks of blood vessels. “The liver is one of the only organs that can regenerate, and it’s the mature cells that divide, without an intermediate stem cell. To boost their hepatocyte population, the researchers decided to take advantage of a key trait of liver cells, which is that they can multiply to generate new liver tissue. A healthy human liver has about 100 billion hepatocytes, and Bhatia believes that at least 10 to 30 percent of that number would be necessary to help most patients. However, those implants contained fewer than 1 million hepatocytes (the cells that perform most of the liver’s critical functions). There, the liver cells would integrate with the mouse’s circulatory system, allowing it to receive a blood supply and begin performing normal liver functions. In 2011, she developed an engineered tissue scaffold, about the size and shape of a contact lens, that could be implanted into the abdomen of a mouse. The new implantable liver builds on previous work by Bhatia’s lab. The paper’s lead author is Kelly Stevens, a former Koch Institute postdoc. In that population you could imagine augmenting their liver function with a small engineered liver, which is an idea we’re pretty excited about,” she says. “These patients never really are transplant candidates, but they suffer from liver disease, and they live with it their whole lives. These engineered livers could also help the millions of people who suffer from chronic liver disease but don’t qualify for a liver transplant, says Bhatia, the senior author of the study, which appears in the July 19 issue of Science Translational Medicine. Our goal is that one day we could use this technology to increase the number of transplants that are done for patients, which right now is very limited,” says Sangeeta Bhatia, the John and Dorothy Wilson Professor of Health Sciences and Technology and Electrical Engineering and Computer Science and a member of MIT’s Koch Institute for Integrative Cancer Research and Institute for Medical Engineering and Science. “There are just not enough organs to go around. ![]() In a study of mice with damaged livers, the researchers found that after being implanted in the abdomen, the tiny structures expanded 50-fold and were able to perform normal liver tissue functions. To help address that shortage, researchers at MIT, Rockefeller University, and Boston University have developed a new way to engineer liver tissue, by organizing tiny subunits that contain three types of cells embedded into a biodegradable tissue scaffold. More than 17,000 Americans suffering from these diseases are now waiting for liver transplants, but significantly fewer livers are available. Many diseases, including cirrhosis and hepatitis, can lead to liver failure.
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