Chinese scientists restore liver with skin cells
12 May 2011
A team of scientists in China has developed a way to restore damaged livers using adult skin stem cells. According to some specialists this could be the ultimate ''Holy Grail'', allowing people needing liver transplants to be simply treated with an injection of their own cells.
The study was conducted over a three year period during which the researchers took skin cells from mice to reproduce fully functional liver cells.
The results, to be published today in the Journal of Nature, show that mice thus treated, were able to live healthy lives.
Professor Geoff McCaughan, who has worked nationally and internationally in the field of liver transplants for 25 years and is head of the Liver Research Program at the Centenary Research Institute at the University of Sydney, is excited by the Chinese team's work.
According to him, the findings could have dramatic ramifications.
"The commonest cause for liver transplantation is the adult community in the western world is people with chronic hepatitis C infection who develop sclerosis or liver cancer," professor McCaughan said.