Science Alert tells us more about the researchers from University of Texas Medical Branch and their subjects – young pigs who had successful, non-rejected transplants of bioengineered lungs grown from the recipients’ own cells:
To grow the lungs, the researchers first created four lung scaffolds. To do this, they removed all of the cells and blood from pig lungs using a mix of sugar and detergent. This left them with just the proteins of each lung – essentially, its skeleton.
Next, they placed each scaffold in a tank containing a special mix of nutrients. They then added cells from recipient pigs’ own lungs to each of the scaffolds and let the lungs grow for 30 days. Finally, they transplanted the four lab-grown lungs into the four recipient pigs.
Within two weeks, the transplanted lungs had already begun to establish the robust networks of blood vessels they need to survive.
During two months of post-transplant observation, the researchers found no signs that the animals’ immune systems had rejected the new lungs. But they next want to study the long-term viability of the organs.
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