People with end stage liver disease can be on a transplant waiting list for years and never receive a new liver. For each of those people, there are even more who do not meet the criteria for even getting on a waiting list for one reason or another. A new groundbreaking experimental therapy aims to ease that shortage of donated livers for transplant. The biotech company LyGenesis has learned to extract cells called hepatocytes from donated livers that will not be transplanted because they have no match. These living cells are then injected into the abdominal lymph nodes of a patient, which act as a bioreactor to help the hepatocytes grow into fully-functioning livers, even in a novel position within the body. The therapy they named LYG-LIV-001 has moved to the human trials stage, and the first human patient received an injection of hepatocytes on Tuesday. It could be more than a year before the results are determined. If this therapy works, one donated liver could help dozens of patients grow their own new livers. Read about this potential breakthrough at Gizmodo.
(Image credit: LyGenesis)
