Miniature Human Livers Grown In Lab

Zothecula writes "In the quest to grow replacement human organs in the lab, livers are no doubt at the top of many a barfly's wish list. With its wide range of functions that support almost every organ in the body and no way to compensate for the absence of liver function, the ability to grow a replacement is also the focus of many research efforts. Now, for the first time, researchers have been able to successfully engineer miniature livers in the lab using human liver cells."

Comments

How much liver do we need to make a difference?

[Guppy]

Well, it looks like these mini livers put us just slightly under two orders of magnitude in size away before getting sufficient capacity to sustain a human (at the mentioned minimum of 30% normal function).

Or does it? in many cases, liver disease is the result of a chronic and slow destruction that does not remove all capacity at a stroke; rather, the person slowly loses capacity until at some point it becomes insufficient to sustain life.

I am hoping a partial transplant of even a micro-sized lobe might be sufficient to bump them back up to capacity. If we can get a big enough liver-oid to provide a few years function, that might be enough for an elderly patient to live out the rest of their normal life-span (or at least normal "health-span").

Re:How much liver do we need to make a difference?

[icegreentea]

There have been cases where people badly in need of a liver transplant due to failure have been put on artificial livers that took enough load off the livers/bought the patient enough time that their livers regenerated themselves completely. No need for transplant!