Researchers have successfully transplanted "organoids" of functioning human intestinal tissue grown from pluripotent stem cells in a lab dish into mice -- creating an unprecedented model for studying diseases of the intestine. Reporting their results Oct. 19 online in Nature Medicine, scientists from Cincinnati Children's Hospital Medical Center said that, through additional translational research the findings could eventually lead to bioengineering personalized human intestinal tissue to treat gastrointestinal diseases. "These studies support the concept that patient-specific cells can be used to grow intestine," said Michael Helmrath, MD, MS, lead investigator and surgical director of the Intestinal Rehabilitation Program at Cincinnati Children's. "This provides a new way to study the many diseases and conditions that can cause intestinal failure, from genetic disorders appearing at birth to conditions that strike later in life, such as cancer and Crohn's disease. These studies also advance the longer-term goal of growing tissues that can replace damaged human intestine." The scientists used induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs) -- which can become any tissue type in the body -- to generate the intestinal organoids. The team converted adult cells drawn from skin and blood samples into "blank" iPSCs, then placed the stem cells into a specific molecular … Continue reading →

Rice University bioengineers have found new evidence of a possible link between diabetes and the hardening of heart valves. A Rice lab, in collaboration with the University of Texas (UT) Medical School at Houston, discovered that the interstitial cells that turn raw materials into heart valves need just the right amount of nutrients for proper metabolic function. The surprise was that feeding them too much glucose, a sugar, slowed the cells down. Diabetes is a metabolic disease characterized by high blood-sugar levels over a long period; a 2006 study of atherosclerosis by University of Washington researchers found a correlation between diabetes and aortic-valve calcification. In the new work by the lab of Jane Grande-Allen of Rices bioengineering department, recently ranked No. 5 in the nation by U.S. News & World Report, researchers have directly seen the effect of high blood-sugar levels on heart-valve cell metabolism for the first time. The study appears this month in the Journal of the Royal Society Interface. The most significant result of the study is that high glucose concentration can actually be detrimental to the aortic-valve cells and their behavior in interacting with the extracellular matrix, said lead author Peter Kamel, who carried out the … Continue reading →