Growing Mini Livers in Lymph Nodes: A Promising New Treatment for End-Stage Liver Disease

Friday - April 19 2024, 14:23 UTC - 7 months ago

A patient with severe liver damage has received an injection that could grow a mini liver inside their body, potentially providing an alternative to organ transplantation. The treatment involves injecting healthy liver cells into lymph nodes, and if successful, could also benefit those with kidney failure or diabetes. This approach differs from traditional regenerative therapies and has already shown success in animal models.

Growing a substitute liver inside a human body sounds like science fiction. Yet a patient with severe liver damage just received an injection that could grow an additional "mini liver" directly inside their body. If all goes well, it’ll take up the failing liver’s job of filtering toxins from the blood.

For people with end-stage liver disease, a transplant is the only solution. But matching donor organs are hard to come by. Across the globe, two million people die from liver failure each year.

The new treatment, helmed by biotechnology company LyGenesis, offers an unusual solution. Rather than transplanting a whole new liver, the team is injecting healthy donor liver cells into lymph nodes in the patient’s upper abdomen. In a few months, it’s hoped the cells will gradually replicate and grow into a functional miniature liver.

The patient is part of a Phase 2a clinical trial, a stage that begins to gauge whether a therapy is effective. In up to 12 people with end-stage liver disease, the trial will test multiple doses to find the "Goldilocks" zone of treatment—effective with minimal side effects.

If successful, the therapy could sidestep the transplant organ shortage problem, not just for liver disease, but potentially also for kidney failure or diabetes. The math also works in favor of patients. Instead of one donor organ per recipient, healthy cells from one person could help multiple people in need of new organs.

A Living Bioreactor .

Most of us don’t think about lymph nodes until we catch a cold, and they swell up painfully under the chin. These structures are dotted throughout the body. Like tiny cellular nurseries, they help immune cells proliferate to fend off invading viruses and bacteria.

They also have a dark side. Lymph nodes aid the spread of breast and other types of cancers. Because they’re highly connected to a highway of lymphatic vessels, cancer cells tunnel into them and take advantage of nutrients in the blood to grow and spread across the body.

What seems like a biological downfall may benefit regenerative medicine. If lymph nodes can support both immune cells and cancer growth, they may also be able to incubate other cell types and grow them into tissues—or even replacement organs.

The idea diverges from usual regenerative therapies, such as stem cell treatments, which aim to revive damaged tissues at the spot of injury. This is a hard ask: When organs fail, they often scar and spew out toxic chemicals that prevent engrafted cells from growing.

Lymph nodes offer a way to skip these cellular cesspools entirely.

Growing organs inside lymph nodes may sound far-fetched, but over a decade ago, LyGenesis’ chief scientific officer and co-founder, Dr. Eric Lagasse, showed it was possible in mice. In one test, his team injected liver cells directly into a lymph node inside a mouse’s belly. They found the grafted cells stayed in the "nursery," rather than roaming the body and causing unexpected side effects.

In a mouse model of lethal liver failure, an infusion of healthy liver cells into the lymph node grew into a mini liver in just twelve weeks. The transplanted cells took over their host, developing into functional liver tissue and restoring the mouse's liver function. This groundbreaking discovery paved the way for human clinical trials to begin.

While the treatment is still in its early stages, the potential for growing mini livers in lymph nodes is vast. Not only could it be used to treat end-stage liver disease, but it could also be applied to other organ failures and diseases. The success of this treatment could revolutionize the field of regenerative medicine and provide a viable alternative to organ transplantation.

TLDR: A new treatment involves injecting healthy liver cells into a patient's lymph nodes, where they can grow into a functional mini liver. This could potentially provide an alternative to organ transplantation and benefit patients with end-stage liver disease, kidney failure, or diabetes. The idea behind this treatment diverges from traditional regenerative therapies and has already shown success in animal models.

#MiniLivers #RegenerativeMedicine #LiverDisease #OrganTransplant #Biotechnology .