Chinese Exclusive
Chinese scientists have developed a bio-artificial liver
Chinese scientists have developed a new bioengineered liver that will help patients with liver failure to wait for the transplantation of this organ.
Bioengineered liver is placed on the patient's body, it is based on human liver cells, according to the results of scientists' work published today in the latest issue of the international scientific journal Cell Research (Shi et al., Improved survival of porcine acute liver failure by a bioartificial liver device implanted with induced human functional hepatocytes, in the public domain – VM).
During the first clinical application last week, this device saved the life of a 61-year-old woman dying of acute liver failure, said Professor Ding Itao (Yi–Tao Ding - VM), who is a member of a research group including scientists from the Shanghai Institute of Biological Sciences and Gulou Hospital in Nanjing.
This year they plan to conduct new clinical trials in Shanghai and nearby cities.
Bioengineered liver will help restore the liver functions of patients and prolong their lives so that they can wait for suitable donor organs for transplantation, which is now the only means in critical cases.
Ding Itao said Chinese scientists have been using artificial livers since 1998, but previous devices used pig liver cells.
"The new device is based on cells taken from human skin, fat or other tissues that are reprogrammed into /liver/ cells. It is safer and less likely to cause a rejection reaction," he said.
Tests on laboratory animals have shown that pigs with acute liver failure after treatment with a new bioengineered liver, on average, survive in 80 percent of cases, and pigs without such treatment die after about 3 days.
Drawings from an article in Cell Research: the scheme of the artificial liver (bioartificial liver, BAL), photos of pigs from the control and experimental groups and a graph of the survival of animals with acute liver failure in two control and one experimental group – VM.Scientists are sure that an artificial liver is a boon for China, which has many patients with hepatitis B and liver cancer.
According to official data, over 100 million people in China are infected with hepatitis B.
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27.01.2015