Growing a liver from a lymph node
In a groundbreaking experiment, scientists are attempting to grow a new liver inside a patient with liver failure. The procedure, developed by Pittsburgh-based biotech company LyGenesis, involves the injection of liver cells called hepatocytes into the patient’s abdominal lymph nodes. The liver is the only organ capable of rebuilding itself, and in previous experiments in pigs, introducing donor cells allowed animals with damaged organs to develop mini-livers with networks of blood vessels and bile ducts that exhibited at least some vital functions. For the first human trial, begun last month, doctors threaded a small tube with a camera down the patient’s throat into the digestive tract, then used ultrasound to identify the targeted lymph nodes and inject them with 50 million hepatocytes. “We’re using the lymph node as a living bioreactor,” LyGenesis CEO Michael Hufford tells Wired. The mini-liver isn’t expected to take over all the functions of an original liver, and recipients would have to take immunosuppressant drugs for the rest of their lives. Still, if the procedure works, it could be lifesaving for many patients. The U.S. liver transplant list is around 10,000 patients long, and 12 percent of those waitlisted die each year. The new treatment would use donated livers that couldn’t be matched with a compatible patient. Since the procedure only uses a small amount of material, up to 75 people could be treated with each donor organ.