This company is going to grow new organs in humans for the first time

And the lymph nodes near the liver are the closest to receiving the chemical stress signals sent by dying diseased liver tissue, Lagasse says. These signals are meant to encourage the regeneration of any remaining healthy liver tissue, but this does not work in severe disease. However, the symptoms seem to help the growth of liver tissue in the neighboring lymph nodes.

“It’s amazing,” Gouon-Evans says. “This little incubator living in the body [that can grow organs] It’s just amazing.”

Liogenesis

About five years ago, Lagasse, along with entrepreneur and drug developer Michael Hufford and transplant physician Paulo Fontes, founded Legion to take the technology even further. The team is investigating using lymph nodes to grow new thymuses, kidneys and pancreas.

But the company’s priority is the liver. Over the past 10 years, the team has gathered promising evidence that suggests they can use their approach to grow new small livers in mice, pigs and dogs. Small livers don’t grow indefinitely—the body has an internal regulator that stops liver growth at a certain point, which is why healthy livers don’t overshoot when they regenerate.

In the team’s study of mice with genetic liver problems, most of the cells injected into the lymph nodes stayed there, but some migrated to the liver, leaving enough healthy liver tissue. These migrating cells can help the remaining liver tissue regenerate and heal. When this happens, the new mini-liver in the lymph node shrinks, keeping the overall liver tissue in balance, says Lagasse.

Other studies focused on pigs and dogs, which diverted the blood supply to the liver, causing the organs to die. Transplanting liver cells into animals’ lymph nodes eventually rescues their liver function.

For example, in the pig study, the team first surgically diverted the blood supply from the liver in six animals. After the pigs recovered from the surgery, the team injected healthy liver cells into their lymph nodes. Sizes ranged from 360 million cells injected in three lymph nodes to 1.8 billion cells in 18 lymph nodes.

Within a few months, all animals appeared to recover from their liver damage. Tests showed that his liver function had improved. And when the team later performed autopsies on the animals, the new organs in the lymph nodes looked like tiny healthy livers, each about 2% the size of an adult’s liver. Other studies show that the treatment takes about three months to achieve maximum benefit.