Following up on a recent study by a Yale team that has shown effective gas exchange in transplanted bioengineered rat lungs, researchers from Harvard Medical School and Boston University now claim to have created the world’s first functional bioartificial lung. Harvard Bioscience, a Holliston, Massachusetts company has proudly announced to have provided the bioreactor in which the lungs were grown.
Some details of the study from an abstract in Nature Medicine:
We decellularized lungs by detergent perfusion and yielded scaffolds with acellular vasculature, airways and alveoli. To regenerate gas exchange tissue, we seeded scaffolds with epithelial and endothelial cells. To establish function, we perfused and ventilated cell-seeded constructs in a bioreactor simulating the physiologic environment of developing lung. By day 5, constructs could be perfused with blood and ventilated using physiologic pressures, and they generated gas exchange comparable to that of isolated native lungs. To show in vivo function, we transplanted regenerated lungs into orthotopic position. After transplantation, constructs were perfused by the recipient’s circulation and ventilated by means of the recipient’s airway and respiratory muscles, and they provided gas exchange in vivo for up to 6 h after extubation.
Press release: Harvard Bioscience Novel Bioreactor Helps Grow First Functional Lung for Successful Transplant in Collaboration With Dr. Harald Ott and Massachusetts General Hospital …
Abstract in Nature Medicine: Regeneration and orthotopic transplantation of a bioartificial lung
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