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By Nigel Boys
Patients who are awaiting lung transplants may be able to replace their damaged breathing apparatus with synthetically engineered ones from a laboratory in the future. However, it’s not likely to happen for some time as further testing has to be done before the first regenerative lungs, which are now being produced in Texas, will become available.
According to Dr. Joan Nichols, lead researcher at the University of Texas Medical Branch in, Galveston, Texas, it has taken a while with various experiments, but now they have managed to create the world’s first human lungs in their laboratory. She added that there was still a long way to go and that the first lungs for transplants probably won’t be available for another 12 years.
The first engineered human lungs were created by the researchers in Texas by using two pairs of lungs from children who had died, but their organs were useless for transplant purposes because they had died from blunt force, probably a traffic accident, said Nichols.
Cells from one of these two lungs was taken and added to the other pair of lungs, which had been stripped clean of almost everything except for the basic structure, continues Nichols. The “rebuilt” lungs were then added to a solution that had been developed especially to help in cell growth, she added.
After four weeks, and much crossing of fingers, the engineered lungs had been produced, according to Nichols. She added that although the results were “so damn cool,” they would not be available for human patients for some time because they would likely be tested on pigs for a decade first.
Nichols further stated that the first production of human lungs were not by mistake or accident, because the researchers had again duplicated the first success at a later date. She added that the engineered lungs looked similar to real human lungs, but without the added density and were more pink in color.
Although the engineered lungs were actually produced last year, it has taken until now before the research team announced their results. “You don’t run out immediately and tell the world you have something wonderful until you’ve proved it to yourselves that we really did something amazing,” said Nichols.
Source: cnn.com
