• Email Us: [email protected]
  • Contact Us: +1 718 874 1545
  • Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar

Medical Market Report

  • Home
  • All Reports
  • About Us
  • Contact Us

World-First Human Trial Could See Lymph Nodes Turned Into Livers

April 3, 2024 by Deborah Bloomfield

After more than a decade of development, the first human trial for a treatment that attempts to tackle end-stage liver disease (ESLD) by turning lymph nodes into livers has begun.

“In a medical first, we have now dosed our first patient in a clinical trial using their own lymph nodes as living bioreactors to regenerate an ectopic organ,” said Dr Michael Hufford, co-founder and CEO of LyGenesis – the company behind the treatment – in a statement.

Advertisement

The treatment works by taking the main functioning cells from a donated liver – known as hepatocytes – and injecting them into the lymph nodes, the little bean-shaped organs that help the immune system by filtering foreign particles (like viruses that cause infections).

Once in the lymph nodes, the liver cells should grow and divide, hooking up with the circulatory system too by developing blood vessels. “Over time, that lymph node will disappear and what you’re left with is a miniature organ,” Hufford told New Scientist.

It’s a procedure that’s already seen success in some animals. Researchers tested it out on pigs by surgically altering their livers to mimic human liver disease and injecting hepatocytes from healthy liver samples into the lymph nodes. All six pigs operated on developed mini livers and consequently, showed signs of recovery from liver failure.

The human trial will see the safety, tolerability, and efficacy of this regenerative cell therapy tested in up to 12 people with ESLD, a condition in which the liver is damaged beyond repair.

Advertisement

In this circumstance, a transplant is often required – but there are a number of factors that can get in the way. Some patients are simply too ill to be in a position for surgery, for example.

However, one of the major problems is the length of the transplant waiting list. At present, nearly 10,000 people in the US are waiting for a donor liver, but they could be waiting for one for up to five years. Around 12 percent of those people will die each year whilst on the list.

It’s hoped that this new treatment will help to tackle the problem. “If our study is successful and we obtain FDA approval, our allogeneic cell therapy could enable one donated liver to treat many dozens of ESLD patients, which could help to tilt the current organ supply-demand imbalance in favor of patients,” said Hufford.

It’ll be a while before the first results from the trial emerge, but researchers will be keeping a close eye on the patients involved over the course of a year, checking for the optimal dose and safety of the treatment, and whether or not it’s effective in treating the signs and symptoms of ESLD.

Deborah Bloomfield
Deborah Bloomfield

Related posts:

  1. Soccer – FIFA backs down on threat to fine Premier clubs who play South American players
  2. UBS clients raise $650 million for biggest yet biotech impact fund
  3. This Is What Cannabis Looks Like Under A Microscope – You Might Be Surprised
  4. Will Lake Mead Go Back To Normal In 2024?

Source Link: World-First Human Trial Could See Lymph Nodes Turned Into Livers

Filed Under: News

Primary Sidebar

  • “Dead Men’s Fingers” Might Just Be The Strangest Fruit On The Planet
  • The South Atlantic’s Giant Weak Spot In The Earth’s Magnetic Field Is Growing
  • Nearly Half A Century After Being Lost, “Zombie Satellite” LES-1 Began Sending Signals To Earth
  • Extinct In the Wild, An Incredibly Rare Spix’s Macaw Chick Hatches In New Hope For Species
  • HUNTR/X Or Giant Squid? Following Alien Claims, We Asked Scientists What They Would Like Interstellar Object 3I/ATLAS To Be
  • Flat-Earthers Proved Wrong Using A Security Camera And A Garage
  • Earth Breaches Its First Climate Tipping Point: We’re Moving Into A World Without Coral Reefs
  • Cheese Caves, A Proposal, And Chance: How Scientists Ended Up Watching Fungi Evolve In Real Time
  • Lab-Grown 3D Embryo Models Make Their Own Blood In Regenerative Medicine Breakthrough
  • Humans’ Hidden “Sixth Sense” To Be Mapped Following $14.2 Million Prize – What Is Interoception?
  • Purple Earth Hypothesis: Our Planet Was Not Blue And Green Over 2.4 Billion Years Ago
  • Hippos Hung Around In Europe 80,000 Years Later Than We Thought
  • Officially Gone: Slender-Billed Curlew, Once-Widespread Migratory Bird, Declared Extinct By IUCN
  • Watch: Rare Footage Captures Freaky Faceless Cusk Eels Lurking On The Deep-Sea Floor
  • Watch This Funky Sea Pig Dancing Its Way Through The Deep Sea, Over 2,300 Meters Below The Surface
  • NASA Lets YouTuber Steve Mould Test His “Weird Chain Theory” In Space
  • The Oldest Stalagmite Ever Dated Was Found In Oklahoma Rocks, Dating Back 289 Million Years
  • 2024’s Great American Eclipse Made Some Birds Behave In Surprising Ways, But Not All Were Fooled
  • “Carter Catastrophe”: The Math Equation That Predicts The End Of Humanity
  • Why Is There No Nobel Prize For Mathematics?
  • Business
  • Health
  • News
  • Science
  • Technology
  • +1 718 874 1545
  • +91 78878 22626
  • [email protected]
Office Address
Prudour Pvt. Ltd. 420 Lexington Avenue Suite 300 New York City, NY 10170.

Powered by Prudour Network

Copyrights © 2025 · Medical Market Report. All Rights Reserved.

Go to mobile version