Tuesday, June 23, 2009

Dog Study (mucosal transplant) and, Pig (stomach and intestine)

Correcting myself, Stelzner's group recently published a paper where dog's were the animal model for curing something like MID (problems with the mucosa), "Intestinal Stem Cell Organoid Transplantation Generates Neomucosa in Dogs." They had cured rats with malabsorption with this experimental design several years ago, and just published this dog study. The next step might be pigs, unless they jumped right into people, which they can now do, since Lgr5 was finally identified as the human intestinal stem cell (these other animal models have well established intestinal stem cell population).

The pig study was a triumph for group effort from Mass Gen and UCLA, "Tissue-Engineered Small Intestine and Stomach Form from Autologous Tissue in a Preclinical Large Animal Model." Basically, mashed up intestinal cells, schmeared this paste onto a bioscaffold they stuck into the pigs' belly cavity, and ta-da! Stomach and intestines formed, including muscle and nerve structure.

Race Car Crash

Race Car Crash from Kinn-Ming Chan de Velarde on Vimeo.