Scientists build liver from skin cells
Health
13:23 28/08/2010

Scientists build liver from skin cells

You will be able to “grow your own transplant liver in a lab within just five years”, says the Daily Mail.

 

This news story is based on research that demonstrated a method to develop skin cells into stem cells, which were then matured into liver cells. The researchers used this technique to develop lab-grown liver cells from patients with various inherited liver diseases, which they hope might aid future research into diseases. They found that the new liver cells shared a number of characteristics with the liver cells of the patients.

 

The method developed in this research looks likely to be an invaluable technique for creating cell cultures that could be experimented on in the lab. However, this research did not aim to investigate how fully-functional liver or transplantable cells could be grown in a lab, both of which are probably many years away.
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Scientists build liver from skin cells