Human iPSC-derived liver buds. TAKANORI TAKEBELiver cells derived from human induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs) and cultured with developmentally important progenitor cells self-organize into functional, three-dimensional liver buds, according to new research published today (July 3) in Nature. The liver buds exhibited metabolisms that, in some aspects, resembled that of human livers, the researchers found, and when transplanted into mice, the buds connected with the host circulatory system.
“I think the quality of the work in the paper is very high,” said Stephen Duncan, the director of the Regenerative Medicine Center at the Medical College of Wisconsin, who did not participate in the research. “They got iPSCs to differentiate by adding cells that produce the right growth factors . . . and then the cells spontaneously formed these three-dimensional aggregates that were able to form a rudimentary vasculature.”
There are currently more than 100,000 people around the globe with end-stage organ failure awaiting organ transplants. With no end to the shortage of organ donors in sight, scientists have for decades attempted to build organs for transplantation from the ground up. The discovery of embryonic stem cells in 1981 offered promise that custom-made organs ...
