Whole Organ Grown In Animal For First Time

An anonymous reader writes British scientists have produced the first working organ grown from scratch in a living animal. Reprogrammed cells created in a lab were used in a mouse to produce a thymus. The organ was created using connective tissue cells from a mouse embryo and were converted into a different cell strain by changing a genetic switch in their DNA. The resulting cells grew into the whole organ after being injected. It has only been tested on mice so far, but researchers at Edinburgh University say that within a decade the procedure could be effective and safe enough for humans. The findings were published in Nature Cell Biology.

Comments

Prior art

[kruach aum]

I have been growing whole, working organs in my own body since at least 1984.

Re:Prior art

[Your.Master]

That's not really clear in any sense.

It comes down to the definition of "individual". The zygote is the first case where you are genetically complete at probably 99.99+% of the same genes you have as an adult. But are you your genes?

Can a zygote truly be referred to as an individual? If so, why can't an egg? Is your definition of "individual" a clump of cells that share the same gene sequences? If so, then are twins two individuals? Why or why not?

We have an intuitive notion of what these things mean and it works after a baby is born and it gets weirder the earlier you go.

Wouldn't it be rejected?

[HangingChad]

This means the developing thymus would not be a tissue match for the patient.

It would seem like organs grown in animals would contain animal proteins and cell receptors. I wonder how they get around that in the patient ready organs? Freaking amazing. Not quite as amazing if the recipient has to live on anti-rejection drugs the rest of their lives, but still impressive.

Researchers also need to be sure that the transplant cells do not pose a cancer risk by growing uncontrollably.

Slight problem there.

Re:Wouldn't it be rejected?

[Anonymous Coward]

An organ grown in an animal would be an animal organ - sure. Which is why you would grow a new organ inside the patient instead. That way, it'd be his own organ - a perfect match. Lost your kidneys to poisoning? Grow new ones. Have surgery that hook the new ones up to the right places, and live normally thereafter . . .

Re:Wouldn't it be rejected?

[i kan reed]

Well, almost certainly in the test mice they debilitated the immune system so they could prove the theory.

You know how medical science is. All of these stages are repeated multiple times when relevant.
First you prove basic mechanism in a pure environment.
Then you prove it works in animal models.
Then you prove it's reliably safe in animal models.
Then you prove it doesn't immediately kill people in small controlled clinical trials, with high risk patients.
Then you demonstrate that it's more effective than the current treatment under specific circumstances in double blind clinical trials.
Congratulations, you're now a legitimate "experimental treatement".

Re:Wouldn't it be rejected?

[Jarik C-Bol]

You missed the entire point of the project.
The idea is not to grow new organs in animals for transplant into people, but to develop the means to inject a 'starter kit' of cells into the patient, and have the patient grow a new organ right in their own body.
So, for someone missing a lung to cancer, or a kidney, or a thymus, (apparently this is what they grew in the test) maybe a spleen, those things you can live without for a bit, (aided by modern medicine obviously) while your body manufactures a new one using their starter kit of cells. I suppose, now that I think about it, they might even be able to eventually grow you a new heart while your body ran on an artificial heart for a bit. The end goal here is to end the need for transplants by being able to force the body to build a new part from scratch. They pointed out that, at this stage, the technique still has the risk of rejection by the body, because it starts with fetal cells (they did this in mice by the way) but their goal is to eventually produce the same results using cells from the end host, so there is no rejection issues.

Re:Wouldn't it be rejected?

[alexander_686]

Maybe not.

One could grow organs inside a person's body or in a tube, but there are issues about blood supply, proper growth, etc. A possible solution would be to grow human organs in animal hosts. Transgenic pigs are often cited as a possible choice. They are about the right size for many organs and their immune system should be able to be tweaked so as not to reject the foreign tissue. Of course, this approach has other technical hurdles to overcome. I am not willing to bet on what the answer will be.

Still in the realm of science fiction but we are getting closer every day.

Re:Sweet.

[i kan reed]

This is big pharma. There's a university-industrial complex out there, that researches then produces new treatments. This is step 1 of how those companies you hate make a new product.

Re:Sweet.

[Fwipp]

It'd be really nice for people who were born without the organs in question. First it'll probably be for people with a straight-forward birth defect, but eventually, this could possibly grow gonads for trans people, allowing their bodies to produce their own hormones. I'd be pretty excited if I could eventually stop taking synthetic estrogens.

Re:Sweet.

[gurps_npc]

Actually, that's exactly how they do kidney transplants. They don't bother cutting out your failed kidney - that would just lead to more bleeding and possible complications.

So instead they just give you a third kidney that hopefully works a lot better than the two original ones that failed.

Re:Sweet.

[ColdWetDog]

Including your brain.

Endless summer!