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Artificially grown lungs show promise

University of Texas lab-grown organs won't be ready for transplantation soon

Researchers at the University of Texas have announced the creation of artificial lungs, concocted from elastin and collagen scaffolding and devoid of cells. The successfully grown lungs, however, will not be ready for implantation until after another 12 years of clinical trials and testing.

In a live trial, scientists then placed a patient’s own cells on the scaffolding to grow. Weeks later, the once-empty scaffolding resembled fully functioning lungs.

Dr. Christine Lau, associate professor of thoracic and cardiovascular surgery, said that though the organ-growth process is “a little ways away still, new technology is working in several fronts; I’m sure down the road we can engineer lungs and treat diseases.”

The new invention could treat lung diseases such as emphysema, pulmonary fibrosis, pulmonary hypertension and cycstic fibrosis, she said.

The growth of new organs could also eliminate the biggest risk of the transplant
process: rejection of the organ. Though there are currently drugs to treat acute rejection of lungs and other organs, chronic rejection cannot be treated and is fatal, Surgery Prof. Dr. Irving Kron said.

“If there’s a means of growing organs, that’s a fantastic stride,” Kron said. “There’s a huge shortage of organs such as lungs, so if something like this could work, that would be fantastic for people.”

Kron’s research lab at the University has been looking into lung rehabilitation. The lab has performed successful rehabilitation of lungs that were permanently damaged and not
functional.

It’s estimated that 120,771 people are in need of organ donations. Eighteen people die every day waiting for a donation. One organ donor can save up to eight lives, according to data from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.

There is a high demand for organs, and when the supply does not meet the demand, some individuals turn to extreme methods to obtain organs.

“Donate a kidney, buy a new iPad,” one advertisement from an organ broker in China reads, offering $4,000 in compensation if the kidney could be harvested within 10 days.

Other brokers are not as light-hearted. The World Health Organization estimated that 11,000 organs were bought from the black market in 2010. An organ is sold every hour of every day.

In 2013, the body of Kendrick Johnson, a young man from southern Georgia, was found rolled up in a mat in his high school gym because of a freak accident. After the first autopsy, Johnson’s parents were not satisfied and ordered a second one. Johnson’s body was found to be devoid of organs, instead containing rolled up newspaper.

Despite increasing rates of black market buying and selling of organs, organ trafficking
somehow slips under the radar. In 2011, Levy Izhak Rosenbaum, 61, pleaded guilty to three counts of organ trafficking in federal court in the first U.S. organ trafficking case. Organ trafficking has been illegal in the U.S. since 1984.

Rosenbaum, originally from Israel, had been selling organs at higher rates to Americans since 1999. The broker would create a cover story for each donor to make it appear a voluntary act and to throw off any suspicion.

Artificial organ development, though a new field with several questions still unanswered, offers a chance at serious progress in combatting the black market for organs.

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