Lung taste receptors may help treat asthma
London: Human lungs can detect bitter tastes the same way as the tongue can, potentially paving the way to new treatments for asthma.
The team from the University of Maryland School of Medicine, US, found that contrary to what they thought, the airways in the lungs opened in response to a bitter taste.
Senior study author Stephen Liggett said: "I initially thought the bitter-taste receptors in the lungs would prompt a 'fight or flight' response to a noxious inhaleant causing chest tightness and coughing so you would leave the toxic environment, but that's not what we found," reports a newspaper.
"It turns out that the bitter compounds worked the opposite way from what we thought," according to the journal Nature Medicine.
"They all opened the airway more profoundly than any known drug that we have for treatment of asthma or chronic obstructive pulmonary disease."
"This could replace or enhance what is now in use and represents a completely new approach," said Liggett.
The team tested bitter substances on human and mouse airways. Quinine and chloroquinine, normally used to combat malaria, were used as they taste bitter along with the artificial sweetner saccharin, which has a bitter aftertaste.
Liggett said: "Based on our research we think that the best drugs would be chemical modifications of bitter compounds which would be aerosolised and then inhaled into the lungs in an inhaler."
The discovery was made by accident when the team were studying muscle receptors that cause contraction and relaxation in the lungs.
It is thought that the bitter substances affect how calcium controls muscles.
Monday, October 25, 2010
Saturday, October 23, 2010
U.S. medical team uses new method to save soldier's life
A breath of life: U.S. medical team uses new method to save soldier's life
Dr. Matthias Amann, left, and Dr. Alois Philipp make final preparations for transporting a 22-year-old soldier to the university hospital in Regensburg. Philipp, a perfusionist, helped to develop the ECMO machine, which had been used the previous day to evacuate the soldier after he had been shot in the chest. It was the first time that the innovative and portable heart-lung machine had been used in a combat evacuation.The soldier had been shot in the chest, and a bullet had shredded his lungs.
That’s when Dr. (Lt. Col.) Sandra Wanek got the call. The trauma surgeon led this week’s medevac mission out of Afghanistan as part of Landstuhl Regional Medical Center’s Lung Rescue Team, which flies to combat zones to treat servicemembers with the most serious lung injuries and evacuate them to Germany.
Within hours, Wanek and her team were bound for Kandahar.
When they got there Wednesday, they operated on him for five hours and tried several different ventilators, but all of them failed.
“I just could not improve his oxygenation to the point where it was safe to fly,” Wanek said.
After missing an evacuation flight and doing one more hour of surgery, Wanek chose to use the device — known as an extracorporeal membrane oxygenation (ECMO) machine — for the first time.
The machine, developed in Germany, forces the patient’s blood through an artificial membrane that lets oxygen in and takes carbon dioxide out.
Without it, she said, the soldier would likely have died.
The flight out of Afghanistan on Wednesday was the first time the machine, not much bigger than a suitcase, was used while transporting a patient out of a combat zone.
“This is the most exciting thing I’ve ever done in the Army,” Wanek said, looking at her unconscious patient. “It’s the most desperate feeling in the world to have someone who is young and whose wounds are survivable and know that I have nothing I can do for him. But now I do. And it’s small enough; it’s transportable; and it’s safe.”
The soldier, whose name was not released, was flown Thursday from Landstuhl to the university hospital in Regensburg, Germany, where the heart-lung machine was first developed and where doctors have particular expertise with it. It’s also where German doctors trained Wanek and her team on how to use the ECMO, before it was brought to Afghanistan. “We trained in July, and this is the first person who needed it,” she said.
Extracorporeal membrane oxygenation was developed in the 1980s as a way to save the lives of premature infants with underdeveloped lungs. Later, doctors began to use the machines on adults with lung failure, most recently with H1N1 influenza patients.
The early machines, however, were too big and heavy — more than 200 pounds — to be used in transit, such as from an accident scene, so a lighter and more compact device was developed.
In 2006, Regensburg doctors started taking the compact machines on rescue flights and ambulances to treat patients with severe lung injuries, such as from gunshot wounds or stabbings, or acute respiratory illness. They have transported about 70 patients hooked up to the machines.
Unlike a ventilator, which pushes air into the lungs, the ECMO machine bypasses the lungs entirely. The machine, which costs about $300,000, has the approval of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, though it’s not used stateside to treat patients in transit, Wanek said.
The machine connects to blood vessels in two places: the groin and the jugular vein. Wanek recalled how nervous she was in Afghanistan when she had to unclamp the veins and let the soldier’s blood flow through the tubes.
“I had not felt my heart beat that hard in a long time,” she said.
The machine worked even better than she expected, and by the time the team landed at Landstuhl several hours later, the soldier’s condition had started to improve, said Air Force Maj. Clayne Benson, another anesthesiologist on the lung rescue team.
Dr. Alois Philipp — one of the developers of the machine — accompanied the soldier back to the Regensberg hospital. Philipp will care for the soldier until his lung injuries heal and he is healthy enough to return to Landstuhl. When the soldier does return, Wanek hopes to hand the young man a scrapbook of photos so that he can see all that was done to keep him alive.
“He’s a history-making soldier,” she said, “and he doesn’t know it yet.”
Monday, October 18, 2010
RePneu Lung Volume Reduction Coil (LVRC) System
PneumRx, Inc. Announces CE Mark Approval For Its RePneu® Lung Volume Reduction Coil (LVRC™) System
(www.pneumrx.com ), a medical device company dedicated to bringing innovation and improvements to the treatment of lung disease, today announced that it has received CE Mark approval for its RePneu Lung Volume Reduction Coil (LVRC) System to treat the later stages of emphysema.
The RePneu LVRC System is a minimally invasive device intended to improve lung function in emphysema patients by brochoscopically implanting Nitinol coils into the lungs to compress damaged tissue (lung volume reduction) and restore elastic recoil to the healthier lung tissue. This treatment offers a minimally invasive alternative to lung volume reduction surgery, and works independently of collateral ventilation. The CE mark approval enables PneumRx to move forward with commercialization in Europe and other select markets. PneumRx intends to launch its RePneu LVRC System in Europe in the last quarter of 2010. PneumRx plans to continue its ongoing partnership with physicians through training and by offering novel products for the diagnosis and treatment of lung disease.
"We are thrilled to have achieved this important milestone, and look forward to introducing our RePneu LVRC to the European market to help improve the lives of so many people who are suffering from emphysema and have few other viable treatment options," said Erin McGurk, President and CEO of PneumRx, Inc. "We are extremely pleased with the significant improvements in pulmonary function tests, exercise tolerance, and quality of life experienced by our clinical trial patients, and expect to bring these same benefits to a broader population of emphysema patients with the commercialization of the RePneu LVRC System in Europe."
About PneumRx, Inc.
PneumRx, Inc. is a rapidly growing medical device company focused on the development and commercialization of innovative products to treat emphysema using minimally-invasive techniques. It is a privately held company located in Mountain View, California.
PneumRx, Inc. is a rapidly growing medical device company focused on the development and commercialization of innovative products to treat emphysema using minimally-invasive techniques. It is a privately held company located in Mountain View, California.
SOURCE PneumRx, Inc.
Saturday, October 16, 2010
How much does a pack of cigarettes really cost?
How much does a pack of cigarettes really cost? $16.43
On Thursday, Oct. 14, the American Lung Association of Florida will host the first Florida Tobacco Cessation Summit at Lake Nona — a free, one-day event that will examine the benefits of smoking cessation for Floridians.
Participants representing a broad range of industries will learn about the short- and long-term positive outcomes that can result from providing comprehensive cessation coverage.
“Each year I see the devastating health effects of tobacco use throughout Florida,” said Martha Bogdan, president of the American Lung Association of the Southeast. “We have made great strides in reducing tobacco use through smoke-free air laws, increasing the cost of cigarettes and funding tobacco prevention programs. Now it’s time to help those who want to quit smoking succeed by ensuring full access to cessation products and services.”
The event will be held at the Sanford-Burnham Medical Research Institute at Lake Nona. Registration for the event begins at 8 a.m. Although there is no charge to attend, space is limited. For more information on the Florida tobacco summit, click here.
A recent report released by the American Lung Association, Smoking Cessation: the Economic Benefits, revealed startling numbers related to the true costs of tobacco use in Florida. Smoking can be linked to productivity losses of $4.4 billion, premature death losses of $7.9 billion and direct medical expenditures of $7.2 billion – totaling $19.6 billion in loss to the state.
When researchers considered productivity losses and the cost of health-care for smokers, the true cost of a pack of cigarettes in Florida is $16.43.
Tobacco cessation programs have consistently proven effective and the benefits of these programs greatly outweigh the cost of implementing them. Smoking cessation is one of the most cost-effective wellness initiatives employers can undertake, the lung association says.
The summit will feature discussions on tobacco’s impact on smokers, employers and Florida, the benefits of providing smoking cessation treatment, and the recent health care reform and what it means for tobacco addiction treatment in Florida.
see more info at........
http://blogs.orlandosentinel.com/health/2010/10/12/how-much-does-a-pack-of-cigarettes-really-cost-16-43/
On Thursday, Oct. 14, the American Lung Association of Florida will host the first Florida Tobacco Cessation Summit at Lake Nona — a free, one-day event that will examine the benefits of smoking cessation for Floridians.
Participants representing a broad range of industries will learn about the short- and long-term positive outcomes that can result from providing comprehensive cessation coverage.
“Each year I see the devastating health effects of tobacco use throughout Florida,” said Martha Bogdan, president of the American Lung Association of the Southeast. “We have made great strides in reducing tobacco use through smoke-free air laws, increasing the cost of cigarettes and funding tobacco prevention programs. Now it’s time to help those who want to quit smoking succeed by ensuring full access to cessation products and services.”
The event will be held at the Sanford-Burnham Medical Research Institute at Lake Nona. Registration for the event begins at 8 a.m. Although there is no charge to attend, space is limited. For more information on the Florida tobacco summit, click here.
A recent report released by the American Lung Association, Smoking Cessation: the Economic Benefits, revealed startling numbers related to the true costs of tobacco use in Florida. Smoking can be linked to productivity losses of $4.4 billion, premature death losses of $7.9 billion and direct medical expenditures of $7.2 billion – totaling $19.6 billion in loss to the state.
When researchers considered productivity losses and the cost of health-care for smokers, the true cost of a pack of cigarettes in Florida is $16.43.
Tobacco cessation programs have consistently proven effective and the benefits of these programs greatly outweigh the cost of implementing them. Smoking cessation is one of the most cost-effective wellness initiatives employers can undertake, the lung association says.
The summit will feature discussions on tobacco’s impact on smokers, employers and Florida, the benefits of providing smoking cessation treatment, and the recent health care reform and what it means for tobacco addiction treatment in Florida.
see more info at........
http://blogs.orlandosentinel.com/health/2010/10/12/how-much-does-a-pack-of-cigarettes-really-cost-16-43/
Thursday, October 14, 2010
ALung Technologies Closes on $14 Million Financing
ALung Technologies Closes on $14 Million Series A Financing
PITTSBURGH--(BUSINESS WIRE)--ALung Technologies, Inc. today announced that the Company has closed a $14 Million Series A financing round. The investment will support ongoing clinical trials of the Hemolung™ Respiratory Assist System and its subsequent commercialization. The Company’s Hemolung device is expected to help many patients with acute respiratory failure to avoid intubation and invasive mechanical ventilation.
“This financing will allow ALung to complete its clinical trial in Germany and subsequently commercialize the Hemolung System,” said Peter DeComo, Chairman and CEO of ALung. “The ability of the Company to secure this financing in the current economic climate reinforces the potential of the Hemolung technology to help patients heal more quickly while reducing the overall cost of healthcare.”
A pilot study of the device is currently underway in Germany to demonstrate the safety and performance of the device. A US-based pivotal trial to gain FDA clearance will follow. “We are very excited about the early results coming out of our clinical trial in Germany,” said Nicholas Kuhn, Chief Operating Officer at ALung. “We look forward to completing our clinical trial and introducing the Hemolung to physicians and patients in the near future.”
Eagle Ventures, Inc., a Pittsburgh-based private equity firm, led the financing. Participating in the round were Birchmere Ventures, a Pittsburgh-based early-stage venture capital firm, as well as new and existing individual investors.
ALung Technologies, Inc. is a Pittsburgh-based medical device company commercializing artificial lung devices for the treatment of respiratory failure. The Company’s Hemolung™ Respiratory Assist System is designed to replace or supplement the use of invasive ventilators for patients with acute respiratory failure. For more information about ALung and the Hemolung Respiratory Assist System, please visit http://www.alung.com.
Developer of Innovative Respiratory Support Device Announces Financing to Support Clinical Trials and Product Commercialization.
“We are very excited about the early results coming out of our clinical trial in Germany”The Hemolung Respiratory Assist System is designed to remove carbon dioxide and deliver oxygen directly to the patient's blood via a small catheter, inserted into the jugular or femoral vein, similar to acute kidney dialysis. This treatment is expected to provide a significant benefit over intubation and mechanical ventilation, in that it will allow the patient to talk and eat, and avoid sedation, while giving the lungs the opportunity to heal.
“This financing will allow ALung to complete its clinical trial in Germany and subsequently commercialize the Hemolung System,” said Peter DeComo, Chairman and CEO of ALung. “The ability of the Company to secure this financing in the current economic climate reinforces the potential of the Hemolung technology to help patients heal more quickly while reducing the overall cost of healthcare.”
A pilot study of the device is currently underway in Germany to demonstrate the safety and performance of the device. A US-based pivotal trial to gain FDA clearance will follow. “We are very excited about the early results coming out of our clinical trial in Germany,” said Nicholas Kuhn, Chief Operating Officer at ALung. “We look forward to completing our clinical trial and introducing the Hemolung to physicians and patients in the near future.”
Eagle Ventures, Inc., a Pittsburgh-based private equity firm, led the financing. Participating in the round were Birchmere Ventures, a Pittsburgh-based early-stage venture capital firm, as well as new and existing individual investors.
ALung Technologies, Inc. is a Pittsburgh-based medical device company commercializing artificial lung devices for the treatment of respiratory failure. The Company’s Hemolung™ Respiratory Assist System is designed to replace or supplement the use of invasive ventilators for patients with acute respiratory failure. For more information about ALung and the Hemolung Respiratory Assist System, please visit http://www.alung.com.
Contacts
Monday, October 11, 2010
creating artificial alveolus
This ersatz lung, no bigger than a multivitamin, could represent a new pharmaceutical testing method.
On it, researchers have created an artificial alveolus, one of the sacs in the lungs where oxygen crosses a membrane to enter the body's blood vessels. A polymer sheet that stands in for the membrane is in the blue strip. On one side of the sheet, blood-vessel cells mimic a capillary wall; on the other, lung-cancer cells mimic lung epithelial cells.
Scientists have tested the chip's immune response, and it behaves just like real tissue would, a first step to having lifelike organ systems on which drugs can act. The chip's primary developer, biomedical engineer Dongeun (Dan) Huh of Harvard University, hopes that within two years, the chip will succeed in mimicking the process by which the lungs swap oxygen for carbon dioxide. Huh would like to create a suite of artificial organs to be used in cosmetics testing and pharmaceutical safety trials.
Generating artificial alveolus sounds like a first in building a complete replacement lung.
artificial alveolus,lung replacement
This post by Victor Zapana originally appeared at Popular Science.
On it, researchers have created an artificial alveolus, one of the sacs in the lungs where oxygen crosses a membrane to enter the body's blood vessels. A polymer sheet that stands in for the membrane is in the blue strip. On one side of the sheet, blood-vessel cells mimic a capillary wall; on the other, lung-cancer cells mimic lung epithelial cells.
Scientists have tested the chip's immune response, and it behaves just like real tissue would, a first step to having lifelike organ systems on which drugs can act. The chip's primary developer, biomedical engineer Dongeun (Dan) Huh of Harvard University, hopes that within two years, the chip will succeed in mimicking the process by which the lungs swap oxygen for carbon dioxide. Huh would like to create a suite of artificial organs to be used in cosmetics testing and pharmaceutical safety trials.
Generating artificial alveolus sounds like a first in building a complete replacement lung.
artificial alveolus,lung replacement
This post by Victor Zapana originally appeared at Popular Science.
Sunday, October 10, 2010
Making a Lung Replacement
Making a Lung Replacement
National Institutes of Health Research Matters
Hot on the heels of progress toward a liver transplant substitute, researchers have made transplantable lung grafts for rats. The accomplishment could pave the way for the development of an engineered human lung.
Lungs have a limited ability to regenerate. The primary therapy for severely damaged lungs is currently lung transplantation—surgery to remove the lung and replace it with a healthy lung from a deceased donor. However, lung transplants are limited by the small number of donor organs available—not much more than 1,000 per year.
To be successful, an artificial lung would need to retain the complex branching geometry of the lung’s airways. It would also require a large network of small blood vessels to transport oxygen and nutrients throughout the structure. Decellularization—the process of removing cells from a structure but leaving a scaffold with the architecture of the original tissue—has shown some success in other organs, including heart and liver. A team of researchers led by Dr. Laura Niklason of Yale University set out to build on this recent progress and develop a similar approach for lungs. Their work was supported by NIH’s National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute (NHLBI) and National Institute of General Medical Sciences (NIGMS).
The researchers harvested lungs from adult rats. Treating the lungs with a mild detergent solution for 2 to 3 hours removed the cells but left the lung architecture intact, as reported in the early online edition of Science on June 24, 2010. A careful analysis showed that a matrix of proteins remained behind to hold the lung’s shape.
To see if they could repopulate the matrix with cells and engineer a functional lung, the researchers injected endothelial cells into the blood vessels and epithelial cells into airways. They kept the matrix for up to 8 days in a novel bioreactor that was designed to mimic the pressure changes and ventilation a lung would experience. The researchers found that the cells reseeded the surfaces of the matrix in their appropriate locations. This finding suggests that the decellularized matrix maintains cues for the cells to attach and thrive.
The researchers tested the engineered lungs in rats for short time intervals (45-120 min) and found that the lungs inflated with air, with only some modest bleeding into airways. Most importantly, the lungs successfully exchanged oxygen and carbon dioxide like natural lungs.
To see whether their method might apply to human tissues, the researchers got human lung segments from a tissue bank. They were able to decellularize the tissues while preserving their architecture. They then reseeded the matrices with epithelial and endothelial cells and found that they adhered at their appropriate locations. This result supports the idea that the approach holds promise for human lung tissue.
“We succeeded in engineering an implantable lung in our rat model that could efficiently exchange oxygen and carbon dioxide, and could oxygenate hemoglobin in the blood. This is an early step in the regeneration of entire lungs for larger animals and, eventually, for humans,” says Niklason. She notes that years of research with adult stem cells will likely be needed to develop ways to repopulate lung matrices and produce fully functional lungs for people.
—by Harrison Wein, Ph.D.
Related Links:
Lung Transplant:
http://www.nhlbi.nih.gov/health/dci/Diseases/lungtxp/lungtxp_whatis.html
click to see more info news on lung transplants and Lung Replacements
National Institutes of Health Research Matters
Hot on the heels of progress toward a liver transplant substitute, researchers have made transplantable lung grafts for rats. The accomplishment could pave the way for the development of an engineered human lung.
Lungs have a limited ability to regenerate. The primary therapy for severely damaged lungs is currently lung transplantation—surgery to remove the lung and replace it with a healthy lung from a deceased donor. However, lung transplants are limited by the small number of donor organs available—not much more than 1,000 per year.
To be successful, an artificial lung would need to retain the complex branching geometry of the lung’s airways. It would also require a large network of small blood vessels to transport oxygen and nutrients throughout the structure. Decellularization—the process of removing cells from a structure but leaving a scaffold with the architecture of the original tissue—has shown some success in other organs, including heart and liver. A team of researchers led by Dr. Laura Niklason of Yale University set out to build on this recent progress and develop a similar approach for lungs. Their work was supported by NIH’s National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute (NHLBI) and National Institute of General Medical Sciences (NIGMS).
The researchers harvested lungs from adult rats. Treating the lungs with a mild detergent solution for 2 to 3 hours removed the cells but left the lung architecture intact, as reported in the early online edition of Science on June 24, 2010. A careful analysis showed that a matrix of proteins remained behind to hold the lung’s shape.
To see if they could repopulate the matrix with cells and engineer a functional lung, the researchers injected endothelial cells into the blood vessels and epithelial cells into airways. They kept the matrix for up to 8 days in a novel bioreactor that was designed to mimic the pressure changes and ventilation a lung would experience. The researchers found that the cells reseeded the surfaces of the matrix in their appropriate locations. This finding suggests that the decellularized matrix maintains cues for the cells to attach and thrive.
The researchers tested the engineered lungs in rats for short time intervals (45-120 min) and found that the lungs inflated with air, with only some modest bleeding into airways. Most importantly, the lungs successfully exchanged oxygen and carbon dioxide like natural lungs.
To see whether their method might apply to human tissues, the researchers got human lung segments from a tissue bank. They were able to decellularize the tissues while preserving their architecture. They then reseeded the matrices with epithelial and endothelial cells and found that they adhered at their appropriate locations. This result supports the idea that the approach holds promise for human lung tissue.
“We succeeded in engineering an implantable lung in our rat model that could efficiently exchange oxygen and carbon dioxide, and could oxygenate hemoglobin in the blood. This is an early step in the regeneration of entire lungs for larger animals and, eventually, for humans,” says Niklason. She notes that years of research with adult stem cells will likely be needed to develop ways to repopulate lung matrices and produce fully functional lungs for people.
—by Harrison Wein, Ph.D.
Related Links:
Lung Transplant:
http://www.nhlbi.nih.gov/health/dci/Diseases/lungtxp/lungtxp_whatis.html
click to see more info news on lung transplants and Lung Replacements
ALung Technologies raises $14M
ALung Technologies raises $14M from angel investors
Pittsburgh Business Times - by Malia Spencer and Patty Tascarella
Joe Wojcik
Eagle Ventures President Mel Pirchesky, left, and ALung Technologies Chairman and CEO Pete DeComo stand with a Hemolung, an artificial lung designed to be used in an intensive care unit.
View Larger ALung Technologies Inc. has raised $14 million in its biggest capital round to date, almost all from 90 individual investors who are either active or retired entrepreneurs and chief executives.
The South Side-based respiratory support company has earmarked the money for general operations, including finalizing European clinical trials of its artificial lung, starting tests in the United States, and moving to larger space, said CEO Pete DeComo.
ALung already has added four key positions this year — a vice president of operations and manufacturing, and directors of clinical affairs, finance and manufacturing — and the company, which has outgrown its 6,000-square-foot office in the Terminal Building, is set to move to a 15,000-square-foot location at 25th and Jane streets on the South Side by year-end. The larger space will allow for the expansion of the development and manufacturing areas of the business as the company moves toward commercialization of its Hemolung System.
The Hemolung System, which consists of a console and artificial lung, is designed to treat patients with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease. Blood is removed through a catheter and fed through an artificial lung, where the carbon dioxide is exchanged with oxygen before traveling back into the body. Unlike traditional treatment with mechanical ventilators, Hemolung patients can remain alert during treatment and, in some cases, are ambulatory.
Each console costs roughly $25,000. The artificial lung, tubing and catheter run about $6,000 for a seven-day supply. The company can build four systems a week, but that is expected to increase at the new site.
ALung’s clinical trials in Germany are expected to conclude in early 2011, paving a path for the company to sell its medical device in Europe. ALung also expects to submit its paperwork with the U.S. Food and Drug Administration to begin clinical trials in the U.S. by mid-2011, DeComo said.
DeComo, who started his career as a respiratory therapist at UPMC, said ALung’s product treats conditions familiar to almost everyone.
“You can envision a friend or relative in the ICU,” he said. “That’s also helped with the funding.”
FUNDRAISING THROUGH ANGELS
To get to $14 million before clinical trials were complete, ALung took a nontraditional fundraising route that has been growing in popularity during the post-recession era.
DeComo first met with several venture capital firms — including some who staked his previous company, Renal Solutions, which sold in 2007 for $200 million to Germany-based Fresenius Medical Care — but got the same response.
“They all said, ‘Come back when you have human data,’” he said.
Since ALung was too early-stage for venture capitalists, DeComo decided instead to approach angel investors, and met with Mel Pirchesky, CEO of Oakland-based Eagle Ventures, to set up meetings between ALung and wealthy individuals.
Fundraising began in fall 2009, soon after ALung brought in $2.5 million from its existing investors, DeComo said.
Although it took 10 months, the South Side-based respiratory support company raised far more than its initial goal.
“Actually, we originally were looking for $6 million,” DeComo said. “Then we took it up to $8 million, then $10 million, and finally $14 million.”
The recession had an impact.
“Half the people I called got hurt by the stock market and had no liquidity,” Pirchesky said. “But the other half had cash and were looking to put their money in other places than the stock market.”
The price to invest was $250,000. Some angels banded together, forming limited liability partnerships, so 90 individuals translated into 50 shareholders at a total of $13.5 million. The final $500,000 came from a venture capital firm, North Side-based Birchmere Ventures. Birchmere partner Gary Glausser was not immediately available to comment.
Neither DeComo nor Pirchesky would identify the angels, except to say that they, and ALung COO Nicholas Kuhn, are among them. Pirchesky said two-thirds are Pittsburghers, and 90 percent are active or retired CEOs or entrepreneurs. Some are venture capitalists who invested their own money, DeComo said.
Large rounds by groups of independent investors is “absolutely” on the upswing across the country, said John Taylor, National Venture Capital Association research and financial affairs executive.
“The lines between traditional venture capital — from pension funds and endowment money — and angels is blurring,” Taylor said. “The trend is for angels to do larger rounds, but $14 million is fairly sizable and on the higher-end.”
Decomo said the capital should carry ALung through the end of 2011, but expects to launch another capital raise in six months. The amount has not been determined.
Pittsburgh Business Times - by Malia Spencer and Patty Tascarella
Joe Wojcik
Eagle Ventures President Mel Pirchesky, left, and ALung Technologies Chairman and CEO Pete DeComo stand with a Hemolung, an artificial lung designed to be used in an intensive care unit.
View Larger ALung Technologies Inc. has raised $14 million in its biggest capital round to date, almost all from 90 individual investors who are either active or retired entrepreneurs and chief executives.
The South Side-based respiratory support company has earmarked the money for general operations, including finalizing European clinical trials of its artificial lung, starting tests in the United States, and moving to larger space, said CEO Pete DeComo.
ALung already has added four key positions this year — a vice president of operations and manufacturing, and directors of clinical affairs, finance and manufacturing — and the company, which has outgrown its 6,000-square-foot office in the Terminal Building, is set to move to a 15,000-square-foot location at 25th and Jane streets on the South Side by year-end. The larger space will allow for the expansion of the development and manufacturing areas of the business as the company moves toward commercialization of its Hemolung System.
The Hemolung System, which consists of a console and artificial lung, is designed to treat patients with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease. Blood is removed through a catheter and fed through an artificial lung, where the carbon dioxide is exchanged with oxygen before traveling back into the body. Unlike traditional treatment with mechanical ventilators, Hemolung patients can remain alert during treatment and, in some cases, are ambulatory.
Each console costs roughly $25,000. The artificial lung, tubing and catheter run about $6,000 for a seven-day supply. The company can build four systems a week, but that is expected to increase at the new site.
ALung’s clinical trials in Germany are expected to conclude in early 2011, paving a path for the company to sell its medical device in Europe. ALung also expects to submit its paperwork with the U.S. Food and Drug Administration to begin clinical trials in the U.S. by mid-2011, DeComo said.
DeComo, who started his career as a respiratory therapist at UPMC, said ALung’s product treats conditions familiar to almost everyone.
“You can envision a friend or relative in the ICU,” he said. “That’s also helped with the funding.”
FUNDRAISING THROUGH ANGELS
To get to $14 million before clinical trials were complete, ALung took a nontraditional fundraising route that has been growing in popularity during the post-recession era.
DeComo first met with several venture capital firms — including some who staked his previous company, Renal Solutions, which sold in 2007 for $200 million to Germany-based Fresenius Medical Care — but got the same response.
“They all said, ‘Come back when you have human data,’” he said.
Since ALung was too early-stage for venture capitalists, DeComo decided instead to approach angel investors, and met with Mel Pirchesky, CEO of Oakland-based Eagle Ventures, to set up meetings between ALung and wealthy individuals.
Fundraising began in fall 2009, soon after ALung brought in $2.5 million from its existing investors, DeComo said.
Although it took 10 months, the South Side-based respiratory support company raised far more than its initial goal.
“Actually, we originally were looking for $6 million,” DeComo said. “Then we took it up to $8 million, then $10 million, and finally $14 million.”
The recession had an impact.
“Half the people I called got hurt by the stock market and had no liquidity,” Pirchesky said. “But the other half had cash and were looking to put their money in other places than the stock market.”
The price to invest was $250,000. Some angels banded together, forming limited liability partnerships, so 90 individuals translated into 50 shareholders at a total of $13.5 million. The final $500,000 came from a venture capital firm, North Side-based Birchmere Ventures. Birchmere partner Gary Glausser was not immediately available to comment.
Neither DeComo nor Pirchesky would identify the angels, except to say that they, and ALung COO Nicholas Kuhn, are among them. Pirchesky said two-thirds are Pittsburghers, and 90 percent are active or retired CEOs or entrepreneurs. Some are venture capitalists who invested their own money, DeComo said.
Large rounds by groups of independent investors is “absolutely” on the upswing across the country, said John Taylor, National Venture Capital Association research and financial affairs executive.
“The lines between traditional venture capital — from pension funds and endowment money — and angels is blurring,” Taylor said. “The trend is for angels to do larger rounds, but $14 million is fairly sizable and on the higher-end.”
Decomo said the capital should carry ALung through the end of 2011, but expects to launch another capital raise in six months. The amount has not been determined.
Saturday, October 9, 2010
$14 million to fund artificial lung trials: ALung
firm raises $14 million to fund artificial lung trials
A South Side-based medical device company raised $14 million to fund the completion of clinical trials on its artificial lung device-- in use by two patients in Germany -- as a prelude to seeking approval in the United States, the company said Thursday.
ALung Technologies Inc. completed raising the $14 million in preferred stock this week, which should provide the company with financing through January 2012 so that it can complete its pilot trials, CEO Peter DeComo said. The company had raised $16.5 million in private money over the past decade.
Of the $14 million in new funding, $500,000 came from Birchmere Ventures, a venture capital firm that targets early-stage companies, also based on the South Side. The remainder came from 90 individual investors, some of whom are physicians, said Mel Pirchesky, president of Eagle Ventures Inc., a Highland Park-based firm that raised the money. Pirchesky, whose company charged a percentage of the amount of money it raised, said he is among the investors in ALung.
ALung's Hemolung is designed to replace or supplement traditional ventilators used in hospitals. The artificial lung removes carbon dioxide from the blood and replaces it with oxygen, which is pumped into the patient's blood as it circulates through tubes connected to a vein.
DeComo was optimistic that successful use of the artificial lung on the patients in Germany will lead to an approval for use in Europe by mid-2011. The data gathered from the pilot project can be submitted to the Food and Drug Administration, DeComo said. ALung intends to apply to the FDA for permission to conduct a "pivotal trial" test on patients in the United States, he noted.
Approval for use in the European Union will permit ALung to generate revenue while conducting U.S. trials, DeComo said.
"There's no way we can't get through the FDA trials" and win approval to use the artificial lung in the United States, DeComo said.
To see more of The Pittsburgh Tribune-Review or to subscribe to the newspaper, go to http://www.pittsburghlive.com/x/pittsburghtrib/.
By Joe Napsha, The Pittsburgh Tribune-Review Oct.
A South Side-based medical device company raised $14 million to fund the completion of clinical trials on its artificial lung device-- in use by two patients in Germany -- as a prelude to seeking approval in the United States, the company said Thursday.
ALung Technologies Inc. completed raising the $14 million in preferred stock this week, which should provide the company with financing through January 2012 so that it can complete its pilot trials, CEO Peter DeComo said. The company had raised $16.5 million in private money over the past decade.
Of the $14 million in new funding, $500,000 came from Birchmere Ventures, a venture capital firm that targets early-stage companies, also based on the South Side. The remainder came from 90 individual investors, some of whom are physicians, said Mel Pirchesky, president of Eagle Ventures Inc., a Highland Park-based firm that raised the money. Pirchesky, whose company charged a percentage of the amount of money it raised, said he is among the investors in ALung.
ALung's Hemolung is designed to replace or supplement traditional ventilators used in hospitals. The artificial lung removes carbon dioxide from the blood and replaces it with oxygen, which is pumped into the patient's blood as it circulates through tubes connected to a vein.
DeComo was optimistic that successful use of the artificial lung on the patients in Germany will lead to an approval for use in Europe by mid-2011. The data gathered from the pilot project can be submitted to the Food and Drug Administration, DeComo said. ALung intends to apply to the FDA for permission to conduct a "pivotal trial" test on patients in the United States, he noted.
Approval for use in the European Union will permit ALung to generate revenue while conducting U.S. trials, DeComo said.
"There's no way we can't get through the FDA trials" and win approval to use the artificial lung in the United States, DeComo said.
To see more of The Pittsburgh Tribune-Review or to subscribe to the newspaper, go to http://www.pittsburghlive.com/x/pittsburghtrib/.
By Joe Napsha, The Pittsburgh Tribune-Review Oct.
Saturday, October 2, 2010
Development of Artificial Alveoli
| Development of Artificial Alveoli to Study Ventilator-Induced Lung Injury. | |
| Authors: | Kamotani, Yoko |
| Keywords: | Lung Microfluidics |
| Issue Date: | 2008 |
| Abstract: | Ventilator-induced lung injury (VILI) is a significant health risk for patients placed on mechanical ventilators when the ventilator settings required to sustain life can instead exacerbate or initiate significant lung injury and inflammation. VILI occurs in 5-15% of mechanically ventilated patients with an associated mortality rate of 34-60% and is characterized by increased pulmonary edema, impairment of the surfactant system, and a massive inflammatory response. VILI manifests itself primarily on the level of the alveolus where the cells of the alveolar epithelium undergo abnormally high cyclic strains during ventilation which can result in structural disruption and cytokine release. The successful development of strategies to suppress the damaging effects of VILI depends on understanding the mechanisms of injury yet the specific causes remain unknown. In vitro methods to study VILI including whole lung models and cell stretching devices are either macroscopic or low throughput. To overcome these limitations of traditional systems and to provide an added degree of physiological relevance is to use microtechnology to recreate aspects of biological environments seen in vivo where microfluidics and other microscale phenomena dominate at the cellular level. This thesis describes 4 microsystems that take advantage of microtechnology and when integrated can form an ‘artificial alveoli’ microchip to study VILI. The first microsystem is a series of individually programmable cell stretching microwell arrays where cell alignment in response to applied cyclic strain can be quantified. In the second, cells cultured in wells can be stretched using an air-liquid interface to show increasing damage to epithelial cells. For an on-chip analysis of the biochemical responses of cells to cytokine exposure, the third device is a self-contained microfluidic immunoassay system where liquid flow is controlled using the pins of a Braille display. The fourth is a multi-width multi-depth microchannel network to generate biomimetic vasculatures. The first two and the fourth microsystems are technical device-oriented projects, while the third is used to probe a unique unexplored biological theory that the structural damage of the alveolar epithelium found in VILI is largely due to the stretching of alveoli using an air-liquid interface during ventilation. |
Development of Artificial Alveoli
seee the full article at..........
http://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/handle/2027.42/58536
Living, breathing human lung-on-a-chip
Living, breathing human lung-on-a-chip: A potential drug-testing alternative
Date: Jun 24, 2010
BOSTON, Mass. -- Researchers from the Wyss Institute for Biologically Inspired Engineering at Harvard University, Harvard Medical School, and Children's Hospital Boston have created a device that mimics a living, breathing human lung on a microchip. The device, about the size of a rubber eraser, acts much like a lung in a human body and is made using human lung and blood vessel cells.
Because the lung device is translucent, it provides a window into the inner-workings of the human lung without having to invade a living body. It has the potential to be a valuable tool for testing the effects of environmental toxins, absorption of aerosolized therapeutics, and the safety and efficacy of new drugs. Such a tool may help accelerate pharmaceutical development by reducing the reliance on current models, in which testing a single substance can cost more than $2 million.
"The ability of the lung-on-a-chip device to predict absorption of airborne nanoparticles and mimic the inflammatory response triggered by microbial pathogens provides proof-of-principle for the concept that organs-on-chips could replace many animal studies in the future," says Donald Ingber, senior author on the study and founding director of Harvard's Wyss Institute.
The paper appears in the June 25 issue of Science.
Room to breathe
Until now, tissue-engineered microsystems have been limited either mechanically or biologically, says Ingber, who is also the Judah Folkman professor of vascular Biology at Harvard Medical School and Children's Hospital Boston. "We really can't understand how biology works unless we put it in the physical context of real living cells, tissues, and organs."
With every human breath, air enters the lungs, fills microscopic air sacs called alveoli, and transfers oxygen through a thin, flexible, permeable membrane of lung cells into the bloodstream. It is this membrane -- a three-layered interface of lung cells, a permeable extracellular matrix, and capillary blood vessel cells -- that does the lung's heavy lifting. What's more, this lung-blood interface recognizes invaders such as inhaled bacteria or toxins and activates an immune response.
The lung-on-a-chip microdevice takes a new approach to tissue engineering by placing two layers of living tissues -- the lining of the lung's air sacs and the blood vessels that surround them -- across a porous, flexible boundary. Air is delivered to the lung lining cells, a rich culture medium flows in the capillary channel to mimic blood, and cyclic mechanical stretching mimics breathing. The device was created using a novel microfabrication strategy that uses clear rubbery materials. The strategy was pioneered by another Wyss core faculty member, George Whitesides, the Woodford L. and Ann A. Flowers University Professor at Harvard University.
"We were inspired by how breathing works in the human lung through the creation of a vacuum that is created when our chest expands, which sucks air into the lung and causes the air sac walls to stretch," says first author Dan Huh, a Wyss technology development fellow at the Institute. "Our use of a vacuum to mimic this in our microengineered system was based on design principles from nature."
To determine how well the device replicates the natural responses of living lungs to stimuli, the researchers tested its response to inhaled living E. coli bacteria. They introduced bacteria into the air channel on the lung side of the device and at the same time flowed white blood cells through the channel on the blood vessel side. The lung cells detected the bacteria and, through the porous membrane, activated the blood vessel cells, which in turn triggered an immune response that ultimately caused the white blood cells to move to the air chamber and destroy the bacteria.
"The ability to recreate realistically both the mechanical and biological sides of the in vivo coin is an exciting innovation," says Rustem Ismagilov, professor of chemistry at the University of Chicago, who specializes in biochemical microfluidic systems.
The team followed this experiment with a "real-world application of the device," says Huh. They introduced a variety of nano-scaled particles (a nanometer is one-billionth of a meter) into the air sac channel. Some of these particles exist in commercial products; others are found in air and water pollution. Several types of these nanoparticles entered the lung cells and caused the cells to overproduce free radicals and to induce inflammation. Many of the particles passed through the model lung into the blood channel, and the investigators discovered that mechanical breathing greatly enhanced nanoparticle absorption. Benjamin Matthews, Harvard Medical School assistant professor in the Vascular Biology Program at Children's Hospital Boston, verified these new findings in mice.
"Most importantly, we learned from this model that the act of breathing increases nanoparticle absorption and that it also plays an important role in inducing the toxicity of these nanoparticles," Huh says.
Organs-on-chips
"This lung-on-a-chip is neat and merges a number of technologies in an innovative way," says Robert Langer, MIT Institute professor. "I think it should be useful in testing the safety of different substances on the lung and I can also imagine other related applications, such as in research into how the lung functions."
According to Ismagilov, it's too early to predict how successful this field of research will be. Still, "the potential to use human cells while recapitulating the complex mechanical features and chemical microenvironments of an organ could provide a truly revolutionary paradigm shift in drug discovery," he says.
The investigators have not yet demonstrated the system's capability to mimic gas exchange between the air sac and bloodstream, a key function of the lungs, but, says Huh, they are exploring this now.
The Wyss Institute team is also working to build other organ models, such as a gut-on-a-chip, as well as bone marrow and even cancer models. Further, they are exploring the potential for combining organ systems.
For example, Ingber is collaborating with Kevin Kit Parker, associate professor at Harvard University's School of Engineering and Applied Sciences and another Wyss core faculty member, who has created a beating heart-on-a-chip. They hope to link the breathing lung-on-a-chip to the beating heart-on-a-chip. The engineered organ combination could be used to test inhaled drugs and to identify new and more effective therapeutics that lack adverse cardiac side effects.
This research was funded by the the National Institutes of Health, the American Heart Association, and the Wyss Institute for Biologically Inspired Engineering at Harvard University.
Written by Elizabeth Dougherty
Contact:
Mary Tolikas
mary.tolikas@wyss.harvard.edu
###
Harvard Medical School (http://hms.harvard.edu) has more than 7,500 full-time faculty working in 11 academic departments located at the School's Boston campus or in one of 47 hospital-based clinical departments at 17 Harvard-affiliated teaching hospitals and research institutes. Those affiliates include Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, Brigham and Women's Hospital, Cambridge Health Alliance, Children's Hospital Boston, Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, Forsyth Institute, Harvard Pilgrim Health Care, Hebrew SeniorLife, Joslin Diabetes Center, Judge Baker Children's Center, Massachusetts Eye and Ear Infirmary, Massachusetts General Hospital, McLean Hospital, Mount Auburn Hospital, Schepens Eye Research Institute, Spaulding Rehabilitation Hospital, and VA Boston Healthcare System.
see more info on living breathing human lungs on a chip
The lung on a chip, shown here, was crafted by combining microfabrication techniques from the computer industry with modern tissue engineering techniques, human cells, and a plain old vacuum pump. [Photo credit: Felice Frankel.]
Because the lung device is translucent, it provides a window into the inner-workings of the human lung without having to invade a living body. It has the potential to be a valuable tool for testing the effects of environmental toxins, absorption of aerosolized therapeutics, and the safety and efficacy of new drugs. Such a tool may help accelerate pharmaceutical development by reducing the reliance on current models, in which testing a single substance can cost more than $2 million.
"The ability of the lung-on-a-chip device to predict absorption of airborne nanoparticles and mimic the inflammatory response triggered by microbial pathogens provides proof-of-principle for the concept that organs-on-chips could replace many animal studies in the future," says Donald Ingber, senior author on the study and founding director of Harvard's Wyss Institute.
The paper appears in the June 25 issue of Science.
Room to breathe
Until now, tissue-engineered microsystems have been limited either mechanically or biologically, says Ingber, who is also the Judah Folkman professor of vascular Biology at Harvard Medical School and Children's Hospital Boston. "We really can't understand how biology works unless we put it in the physical context of real living cells, tissues, and organs."
With every human breath, air enters the lungs, fills microscopic air sacs called alveoli, and transfers oxygen through a thin, flexible, permeable membrane of lung cells into the bloodstream. It is this membrane -- a three-layered interface of lung cells, a permeable extracellular matrix, and capillary blood vessel cells -- that does the lung's heavy lifting. What's more, this lung-blood interface recognizes invaders such as inhaled bacteria or toxins and activates an immune response.
The lung-on-a-chip microdevice takes a new approach to tissue engineering by placing two layers of living tissues -- the lining of the lung's air sacs and the blood vessels that surround them -- across a porous, flexible boundary. Air is delivered to the lung lining cells, a rich culture medium flows in the capillary channel to mimic blood, and cyclic mechanical stretching mimics breathing. The device was created using a novel microfabrication strategy that uses clear rubbery materials. The strategy was pioneered by another Wyss core faculty member, George Whitesides, the Woodford L. and Ann A. Flowers University Professor at Harvard University.
"We were inspired by how breathing works in the human lung through the creation of a vacuum that is created when our chest expands, which sucks air into the lung and causes the air sac walls to stretch," says first author Dan Huh, a Wyss technology development fellow at the Institute. "Our use of a vacuum to mimic this in our microengineered system was based on design principles from nature."
To determine how well the device replicates the natural responses of living lungs to stimuli, the researchers tested its response to inhaled living E. coli bacteria. They introduced bacteria into the air channel on the lung side of the device and at the same time flowed white blood cells through the channel on the blood vessel side. The lung cells detected the bacteria and, through the porous membrane, activated the blood vessel cells, which in turn triggered an immune response that ultimately caused the white blood cells to move to the air chamber and destroy the bacteria.
"The ability to recreate realistically both the mechanical and biological sides of the in vivo coin is an exciting innovation," says Rustem Ismagilov, professor of chemistry at the University of Chicago, who specializes in biochemical microfluidic systems.
The team followed this experiment with a "real-world application of the device," says Huh. They introduced a variety of nano-scaled particles (a nanometer is one-billionth of a meter) into the air sac channel. Some of these particles exist in commercial products; others are found in air and water pollution. Several types of these nanoparticles entered the lung cells and caused the cells to overproduce free radicals and to induce inflammation. Many of the particles passed through the model lung into the blood channel, and the investigators discovered that mechanical breathing greatly enhanced nanoparticle absorption. Benjamin Matthews, Harvard Medical School assistant professor in the Vascular Biology Program at Children's Hospital Boston, verified these new findings in mice.
"Most importantly, we learned from this model that the act of breathing increases nanoparticle absorption and that it also plays an important role in inducing the toxicity of these nanoparticles," Huh says.
Organs-on-chips
"This lung-on-a-chip is neat and merges a number of technologies in an innovative way," says Robert Langer, MIT Institute professor. "I think it should be useful in testing the safety of different substances on the lung and I can also imagine other related applications, such as in research into how the lung functions."
According to Ismagilov, it's too early to predict how successful this field of research will be. Still, "the potential to use human cells while recapitulating the complex mechanical features and chemical microenvironments of an organ could provide a truly revolutionary paradigm shift in drug discovery," he says.
The investigators have not yet demonstrated the system's capability to mimic gas exchange between the air sac and bloodstream, a key function of the lungs, but, says Huh, they are exploring this now.
The Wyss Institute team is also working to build other organ models, such as a gut-on-a-chip, as well as bone marrow and even cancer models. Further, they are exploring the potential for combining organ systems.
For example, Ingber is collaborating with Kevin Kit Parker, associate professor at Harvard University's School of Engineering and Applied Sciences and another Wyss core faculty member, who has created a beating heart-on-a-chip. They hope to link the breathing lung-on-a-chip to the beating heart-on-a-chip. The engineered organ combination could be used to test inhaled drugs and to identify new and more effective therapeutics that lack adverse cardiac side effects.
This research was funded by the the National Institutes of Health, the American Heart Association, and the Wyss Institute for Biologically Inspired Engineering at Harvard University.
Written by Elizabeth Dougherty
Contact:
Mary Tolikas
mary.tolikas@wyss.harvard.edu
Harvard Medical School (http://hms.harvard.edu) has more than 7,500 full-time faculty working in 11 academic departments located at the School's Boston campus or in one of 47 hospital-based clinical departments at 17 Harvard-affiliated teaching hospitals and research institutes. Those affiliates include Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, Brigham and Women's Hospital, Cambridge Health Alliance, Children's Hospital Boston, Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, Forsyth Institute, Harvard Pilgrim Health Care, Hebrew SeniorLife, Joslin Diabetes Center, Judge Baker Children's Center, Massachusetts Eye and Ear Infirmary, Massachusetts General Hospital, McLean Hospital, Mount Auburn Hospital, Schepens Eye Research Institute, Spaulding Rehabilitation Hospital, and VA Boston Healthcare System.
see more info on living breathing human lungs on a chip
Friday, October 1, 2010
GROWING LUNGS IN THE LAB
GROWING LUNGS IN THE LAB
RESEARCH SUMMARY
TOPIC: GROWING LUNGS IN THE LAB: MEDICINE'S NEXT BIG THING? Lung transplantation is surgery to replace one or both diseased
lungs with a healthy lung or lungs from a donor. One of the major challenges
with lung transplantation is the lack of donors. There are about 4,000 people
on the waiting list, yet only 1,000 of those patients will receive lungs for
transplant. Rejection is another challenge when it comes to lung transplants.
"There's no attempt made, for the most part, to match the donor lung to the
recipient because there are so few donor organs available, so it's a huge
problem," Angela Panoskaltsis-Mortari, Ph.D., a scientist at the University of
Minnesota, told Ivanhoe.
TOPIC: GROWING LUNGS IN THE LAB: MEDICINE'S NEXT BIG THING? Lung transplantation is surgery to replace one or both diseased
lungs with a healthy lung or lungs from a donor. One of the major challenges
with lung transplantation is the lack of donors. There are about 4,000 people
on the waiting list, yet only 1,000 of those patients will receive lungs for
transplant. Rejection is another challenge when it comes to lung transplants.
"There's no attempt made, for the most part, to match the donor lung to the
recipient because there are so few donor organs available, so it's a huge
problem," Angela Panoskaltsis-Mortari, Ph.D., a scientist at the University of
Minnesota, told Ivanhoe.
BACKGROUND:
GROWING NEW LUNGS: Scientists used a process called whole organ
decellularization to remove cells from the lungs of dead adult mice and implant
healthy stem cells derived from unborn mice into the decellularized matrix --
the natural framework of the lungs. After a week in an incubator, the infused
cells attached themselves to the matrix while breathing with the aid of a
ventilator. "Even after prolonged ventilation, two to three weeks, the matrix
maintained its entire geometry and was in tact. We fully expected that after
all this we'd just have an empty balloon, but that's not what happened.
Everything was maintained, exactly as it would be in a normal lung,"
Panoskaltsis-Mortari told Ivanhoe.
decellularization to remove cells from the lungs of dead adult mice and implant
healthy stem cells derived from unborn mice into the decellularized matrix --
the natural framework of the lungs. After a week in an incubator, the infused
cells attached themselves to the matrix while breathing with the aid of a
ventilator. "Even after prolonged ventilation, two to three weeks, the matrix
maintained its entire geometry and was in tact. We fully expected that after
all this we'd just have an empty balloon, but that's not what happened.
Everything was maintained, exactly as it would be in a normal lung,"
Panoskaltsis-Mortari told Ivanhoe.
Scientists hope they will eventually be able to use this process to "grow" new
lungs for patients in the lab. One possibility may involve removing lungs from
a deceased person, decellularizing them, seeding the remaining framework with
patient-derived stem cells to reproduce and develop into lung cells, and then
transplanting the new lungs into people with diseased lungs to give them a new
life. "I believe that even if they don't make entire lungs, I believe that they
will be able to make portions of lungs or at least enough in order to help the
patient get by," Panoskaltsis-Mortari told Ivanhoe.
lungs for patients in the lab. One possibility may involve removing lungs from
a deceased person, decellularizing them, seeding the remaining framework with
patient-derived stem cells to reproduce and develop into lung cells, and then
transplanting the new lungs into people with diseased lungs to give them a new
life. "I believe that even if they don't make entire lungs, I believe that they
will be able to make portions of lungs or at least enough in order to help the
patient get by," Panoskaltsis-Mortari told Ivanhoe.
Lung transplantation is usually the only option for patients with irreversible
structural lung damage caused by cancer and chronic obstructive pulmonary
diseases such as emphysema, idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis, primary pulmonary
arterial hypertension and cystic fibrosis.
structural lung damage caused by cancer and chronic obstructive pulmonary
diseases such as emphysema, idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis, primary pulmonary
arterial hypertension and cystic fibrosis.
FOR MORE INFORMATION, PLEASE CONTACT:
Nick Hanson, Media Relations
University of Minnesota
Minneapolis, MN
(612) 624-2449
Hans2853@umn.edu
Nick Hanson, Media Relations
University of Minnesota
Minneapolis, MN
(612) 624-2449
Hans2853@umn.edu
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