Reuters
23-JUN-98
By Mark Egan
LOS ANGELES, June 23 (Reuters) - Scientists are taking the first steps to see
if organs -- like a heart or a liver -- can be grown inside the human body
using a new tissue replacement technique, a bio-engineering company said on
Tuesday.
The Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the Childrens' Hospital of
Boston were granted three patents on Tuesday covering the growth of new organs
and tissue within the body. The patents are licensed to La Jolla, Calif.-based
Advanced Tissue Sciences Inc., which owns related patents.
The company said the technology has already been used to grow new livers in
rats and dogs and also to generate new heart muscles in animals with diseased
hearts.
Dr. Gail Naughton, president of Advanced Tissue, told Reuters in an interview
the technique could eventually be used in humans helping to alleviate the
chronic shortage of organs available for transplant patients.
"We are basically creating a tissue so you wouldn't have to rely on plastic or
metal implants, or on cadaver parts," Naughton said. "You can actually create
something young and healthy to replace what the patient is missing."
The technique, called tissue engineering, uses cells and a dissolvable polymer
scaffold to grow tissue and organs in the body. The scaffold is moulded into
the shape of the organ and cells are attached. The cells then grow into the
shape of the scaffold.
By the time the cells have grown to their desired shape the scaffold has
dissolved and the old organ can be removed, if needed. Naughton said the
technique has the potential to grow a liver in a new-born baby within three to
four weeks.
"What's new about this is it allows us to grow tissues and organs inside the
person," Naughton said. "You can either use the patient's own cells, or cells
from another (compatible) person, put them into the defect on a scaffold and
allow the environment of the person's body to grow those cells into a
functional tissue."
Naughton said the method has promise for patients with sclerosis of the liver,
damage from either alcohol or chemicals. It could also help grow livers in
new-born babies with enzymatic deficiency, a fatal inability to make enzymes.
It could also be used to replace pieces of the oesophagus, bones or heart
muscles, she said.
"You could be able to have replacement heart 'patches' for the damaged portion
of the heart," Naughton said. "Potentially any new organ can be grown if you
go and get the right conditions."
As well as alleviating the shortage of donor organs the technique has the
advantage of generating brand new cells unlike donor organs which sometimes
are not much better than the damaged organ being replaced.
Naughton said she expects human trials for the method to start in about two
years for bones and soon after for heart muscles. Liver trials will begin
later, within five to 10 years, she said.
It usually takes at least three years, if all goes well, after the start of
human trials to get U.S. Food and Drug Administration approval.
Another Advanced Tissue product Dermagraft, an engineered skin product which
heals wounds, has already been approved in the U.S. for diabetic patients with
foot ulcers and is in trials for treating other conditions.
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