6/24/2010 PERMALINK
Scientists grow new lungs for rats, raising hopes for engineering human transplants. University of Texas Medical Branch at Galveston : For someone with a severe lung disorder, a lung transplant may be the only chance for survival. Unfortunately, matching donor lungs are rare, and many would-be recipients die waiting for transplants. Now, researchers have demonstrated a potentially revolutionary solution to this problem. By seeding mouse embryonic stem cells into rat lungs whose original cells have been destroyed. Empty lung-shaped scaffolds of structural proteins can be created on which mouse stem cells thrive and differentiate into new cells appropriate to their specific locations.