Source: University of Minnesota
Date: June 25, 2010
Summary:
Scientists with the University of Minnesota’s Masonic Cancer Center and Medical School have achieved another research first – creating breathing lungs in the laboratory. This innovation comes two years after another group of University of Minnesota researchers used a similar technique to create a beating heart in the laboratory. Lead scientist Angela Panoskaltsis-Mortari, Ph.D., and assistant scientist Andrew Price used a process called whole organ decellularization to remove cells from the lungs of dead adult mice and implant healthy stem cells derived from unborn mice into the decellularized matrix, the natural framework of the lungs. After about seven days in an incubator, the infused cells attached themselves to the matrix while breathing with the aid of a tiny, make-shift ventilator. The scientists’ work is in the online version of the journal Tissue Engineering (hard copy to be released August 6, 2010).
