Making pig livers humanlike in quest to ease organ shortage
By LAURAN NEERGAARD
AP Medical Writer
EDEN PRAIRIE, Minn. (AP) — Scientists are transforming pig livers to look and act like human ones, part of a quest to ease the nation’s organ shortage. First workers in a suburban Minneapolis lab dissolve pig cells that made the organ function, leaving ghostly semitranslucent scaffolds floating in large jars. To complete the metamorphosis, they infuse those shells with human cells from donated livers that went untransplanted. It’s all highly experimental. But manufacturer Miromatrix is making plans for first-step human testing — an experiment outside a patient’s body, to see how well a bioengineered liver can filter blood.
