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Related: About this forumBig Idea Turning Lymph Nodes Into Liver-Growing Factories
For people suffering from advanced liver disease, the prognosis is bleak. In many patients, such as those with cirrhosis, the liver becomes so clogged with scar tissue that healthy cells are choked off, preventing it from fulfilling its role of filtering toxins. The only cure is a liver transplant. Yet with just 6,000 available organs for some 100,000 patients each year, chances of winning the liver lottery are slim. And if youre elderly or suffering from another disease, the chances are closer to zero.
But a surprising new technique under development by University of Pittsburgh stem cell researcher Eric Lagasse may radically improve those odds. Lagasse, based at Pitts McGowan Institute for Regenerative Medicine, has discovered how to turn any one of the bodys 500 lymph nodesthe small, oval-shaped organs where immune cells gather to fight invading pathogensinto an incubator that can grow an entirely new liver. Creating a whole set of miniature new livers might take as little as obtaining liver cells from healthy donors and placing them inside the lymph nodes of patients suffering from liver disease.
http://discovermagazine.com/2012/mar/30-turning-lymph-nodes-into-liver-growing-factories
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Big Idea Turning Lymph Nodes Into Liver-Growing Factories (Original Post)
MindMover
Apr 2012
OP
lsewpershad
(2,620 posts)1. Hope is alive.
MindMover
(5,016 posts)2. Fascinating stuff.....
DCKit
(18,541 posts)3. The Devil's work!!1!11!1!
Until Boner needs a new liver, of course.
Chemisse
(30,817 posts)4. This is great news.
My husband is on the cusp of serious liver disease. Growing a new liver would be spectacular!
MindMover
(5,016 posts)5. I am sorry to hear about your husband and hope this information can help.....