Scientists grow working ‘baby’ liver from stem cells

Health care

Maggie Fox, Senior Writer NBC News

July 3, 2013 at 1:02 PM ET

Yokohama City University/Nature

Japanese researchers have generated functioning human liver buds using a type of stem cell called an iPS cell. They grew these rudimentary livers in lab dishes and transplanted them into mice, where they acted like real human liver tissue.

Scientists have found a possible new way to grow a human liver from scratch, using stem cells that form a bud, then transplanting this growing baby liver into the body.

Their work may eventually offer a new way to try to help fill the growing need for organs for transplant. With nearly 17,000 people waiting for a liver transplant in the United States, according to the United Network for Organ Sharing, the need is dire.

Theyve only tried their approach in mice so far, and it would be years before they could start testing it in people. But they used human cells in their experiment and the little pieces of liver that grew in the mice functioned as human liver, not mouse liver.

It might be eventually possible to grow little liver buds and seed them throughout a damaged liver to help regenerate healthy tissue, the researchers report in the journal Nature.

Takanori Takebe, Hideki Taniguchi and colleagues at Yokohama City University in Japan used a certain type of stem cell called an induced pluripotent stem cell, or iPS cell. These cells can be generated using mature tissue like a piece of skin from someone. Theyre genetically manipulated to make them revert to an embryonic state, when each cell has the potential to become any type of tissue or organ in the body.

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Scientists grow working ‘baby’ liver from stem cells