Scientist Grow Whole Functional Organ!

It’s true!  Researchers at the University of Edinburgh announced that they had successfully developed in the lab a mature, fully functioning organ – a thymus –  grown from cells harvested from a host creature.  In this case, the animal was a mouse and the cells used to start the process were murine fibroblasts, a type of progenitor cell found in muscle tissues.  Humans have them, too.  Once the fibroblasts were isolated, scientists submitted them to specific growth factors which morphs the fibroblasts into T-cell producing thymus tissue.

(Induced thymic epithelial cells (iTEC) created from mouse embryonic fibroblasts. Credit: Nick Bredenkamp)

While still in the animal model phase, researchers hope to translate this research to human models in the future.

Read more about the complex process at IFL Science.