Regenerative medicine has taken a new giant step : researchers at the Cincinnati Children's Medical Center, in the United States, have managed to manufacture "organoids" or projects of organs based on human intestinal tissue and transplant them into a laboratory mouse.
The scientists used induced pluripotent stem cells (iPS), that is, cells that can come from any part of the body of an adult person – in this case, from the blood and the skin – and are reprogrammed to become the “ biological bricks ”of a specific tissue.
Once developed in this way, the organoids were grafted into the kidney of a rodent (genetically modified to prevent rejection) and supplied with the necessary blood supply. The tissues grew and formed functional human intestines. According to the scientists, this technique could be used to cure people affected by congenital disorders of the digestive system or patients with cancer or Krohn's disease, who could receive "spare parts" of the damaged tissues from their own cells.
