University of Texas Medical Branch researchers have seeded mouse embryonic stem cells in rats into acellular* rat lungs to create lung-shaped scaffolds of structural proteins on which the mouse stem cells thrived and differentiated into new cells.

The results give the researchers hope that the concept could be scaled up to produce replacement tissues for humans — or used to create models to test therapies and diagnostic techniques for a variety of lung diseases.

The researchers have already begun work on large-scale experiments, “decellularizing” pig lungs with an eye toward using them to produce larger samples of lung tissue that could lead to applications in humans.

They’re also taking on the challenge of vascularization — stimulating the growth of blood vessels that will enable the engineered tissues to survive outside the special bioreactors that the researchers now use to keep them alive.

* Organs whose original cells had been destroyed by repeated cycles of freezing and thawing and exposure to detergent.

More info: University of Texas Medical Branch at Galveston news