{"id":10037,"date":"2019-11-18T00:56:19","date_gmt":"2019-11-18T00:56:19","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/chinesemoment.com\/chinese-culture\/organ-grown-in-lab-tracked\/"},"modified":"2019-11-18T00:56:19","modified_gmt":"2019-11-18T00:56:19","slug":"organ-grown-in-lab-tracked","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/chinesemoment.com\/de\/organ-grown-in-lab-tracked\/","title":{"rendered":"Organ Grown in Lab Tracked"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Scientists in Scotland say they have grown a whole, fully functio<\/em>nal organ inside a living animal for the first time.<\/p>\n

The team from the University of Edinburgh’s Centre for Regenerative Medicine produced a working thymus – an organ found in front of the heart that produces T cells, crucial to the immune system.<\/p>\n

Professor Clare Blackburn who led the research said her team used a technique called ‘reprogramming’ to turn fibroblast cells taken from a mouse embryo into a type of cell found in the thymus. <\/p>\n

These ‘reprogrammed’ cells were mixed with other key thymus cell types.<\/p>\n

When transplanted into a mouse, the cells – shown here on the right – formed a replacement thymus with the same structure and function as a healthy thymus.<\/p>\n

Professor Blackburn hopes the breakthrough will pave the way for similar techniques to eventually be used in humans.<\/p>\n

It’s the shrinking of the thymus that co<\/em>ntributes to the immune system becoming less effective as we age.<\/p>\n

And people born with thymus disorders are often limited by a lack of do<\/em>nors for transplants and problems matching tissue to the recipient.<\/p>\n

Blackburn says that in the future — her lab grown cells could form the basis of new thymus treatments for people with a weakened immune system.<\/div>\n