Human lungs successfully grown in a lab for the first time

Scientists at the University of Texas Medical Branch in Galveston have succeeded in growing human lungs in the laboratory, using components from the lungs of deceased children.

Stem cell specialists have been working on growing lung tissue for some years, but the lung is a complex organ, which presents more problems than regenerating other organ tissue, such as human skin.

The University of Texas Medical Branch (UTMB) first announced their solution for growing lungs in 2010.

"In terms of different cell types, the lung is probably the most complex of all organs - the cells near the entrance are very different from those deep in the lung," UTMB researcher Dr. Joaquin Cortiella said at that time.

"People ask us why we're doing the lung, because it's so hard. But the potential is so great, and the technology is here. It's going to take time, but I think we're going to create a system that works."

"If we can make a good lung for people, we can also make a good model for injury," researcher Dr. Joan Nichols suggested, adding that:

"We can create a fibrotic lung, or an emphysematous lung, and evaluate what's happening with those, what the cells are doing, how well stem cell or other therapy works. We can see what happens in pneumonia, or what happens when you've got a hemorrhagic fever, or tuberculosis, or hantavirus - all the agents that target the lung and cause damage in the lung."

The 2010 research involved destroying the cells of rat lungs by repeatedly freezing and thawing and then "reseeding" the lungs with embryonic stem cells from mice.

Following that work up with similar but more large-scale experiments on pig lungs, the researchers now applied the same regenerative engineering principles to human lungs.

Human lungs grown in a 'fish tank' using cells from deceased children

Taking lungs from two children who had died from trauma (most likely a car accident), the researchers stripped one of the lungs down to a bare "skeleton" of just collagen and elastin - the main proteins in connective tissue.