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Indian American Makes Breakthrough in Treatment of Liver Disease
Bangalore: Dr Sangeeta Bhatia, professor of health sciences and technology at Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) has come up with a breakthrough in the field of liver disease treatment, as reported by Kounteya Sinha of TNN.
For the first time in history, a scientist has been successful in keeping liver cells functional outside the body, supported by certain chemicals which help to maintain the normal functioning of the cells along with production of new tissue.
Liver is one such organ in the human body which regenerates on its own, when a certain portion is removed. But, there were many obstacles in producing artificial liver tissue for transplantation. Hepatocytes (mature liver cells) cannot function normally for a long period of time, once they are removed from the body.
‘’It's a paradox because we know liver cells are capable of growing, but somehow we can't get them to grow outside the body," says Bhatia.
Speaking to TOI, Dr Bhatia said "The main finding is that we identified chemicals that make liver cells grow outside the body. Cells grown this way can be incorporated into engineered livers that we are building to treat patients with liver disease. The human liver cells (hepatocytes) can also be used for drug testing to improve drug safety".
