Stem cell research has resulted in several important breakthroughs in medicine, such as rebuilding the larynx and regenerating spinal cord connectors. Now the liver, one of the most highly sought after organs on the donor transplant list, could get some serious stem cell assistance as well. A team of scientists led by Takanori Takebe of Yokohama City University has successfully created a miniature version of the human liver with the help of induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSC), which are derived from adult somatic cells. They developed the iPSC into generalized liver cells called hepatocytes, at which point the researchers mixed in endothelial cells and mesenchymal stem cells, left the petri dishes alone for a couple days, and voila -- an extremely tiny version of a human liver, said to be the first-ever functional human organ grown from stem cells, was born.
The liver "buds," as they're known, measure five millimeters long and are the sort you would find in human embryos shortly after fertilization. When implanted in mice, the baby livers managed to perform all the functions of their adult equivalents. The researchers' next step would be to generate liver buds that are a touch closer to normal liver tissue -- like the addition of bile ducts -- and to see if they can mass produce them by the tens of thousands. Don't go wasting your liver just yet though, as it'll likely be years before the likes of you and me will be able to have a lab-grown liver in our bodies. In the meantime, check out the time-lapse video after the break to see a young liver bud take shape in a petri dish.
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Even though scientists created this glorious internet you see before you, current scientific practice is still based more on publishing academic papers than sharing ideas online. As one of the more prominent proponents of the open web, Mozilla stepped in to offer a solution with a new open science initiative called Science Lab. It's designed to bridge the gap between the open web community and researchers so that they can share ideas, tools and best practices on how the web can be used to solve problems and improve research techniques. Led by Kaitlin Thaney, a long-time open science advocate, the Lab will initially focus on bringing digital literacy to the scientific community with the help of Software Carpentry, a program that teaches basic computer skills to researchers. From there, the group hopes to foster a global conversation on how to encourage the use of the web in science. It's great to see that the internet has a lot more to offer the field than just Foursquare check-ins.[Image credit: Håkan Dahlström, Flickr] when.eng("eng.perm.init")
Nic Halverson for Discovery News 2013-05-04 02:23:59 UTC 
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