Pitt researchers to try growing organs in lymph nodes

A new liver grown from a human lymph node?

It might sound like science fiction, but one Pitt… A new liver grown from a human lymph node?

It might sound like science fiction, but one Pitt professor believes the novel technique could save the lives of people with terminal organ failure.

“The idea is sort of new. Nobody has done this before,” said Eric Lagasse, an associate professor in the School of Medicine’s pathology department. “We thought [it] was a very interesting approach.”

Lagasse and his team are researching the organ regeneration technique with the help of a recent $2.9 million grant from the National Institutes of Health.

The grant, which extends over a five-year period, will help Lagasse and his six to eight-member team pioneer the technique in animal models, contributing to a long-term project which could eventually lead to clinical trials in humans.

Lagasse said that when patients exhibit degenerative diseases, affected organs sometimes become too damaged to transplant, and medication or cell therapy fails.

“So far, there is no solution for these people,” he said.

But by using organ cells, he and his team of researchers are looking at the human body’s more than 500 lymph nodes for the solution. The lymph nodes produce white blood cells to attack pathogens when triggered.

“We can turn this into other types of tissue,” he said. “What we’re saying is that the lymph node is a great place [for organ regeneration].”

For the study, Lagasse and his researchers will inject cells from body organs, such as the liver, pancreas and thymus — an organ that creates white blood cells during childhood — into lymph nodes. The injection will cause a new organ to grow ectopically, or outside where the organ would usually reside.

Lagasse said the eventual goal is to grow new organs for terminal patients, including those with end-stage liver disease, insulin deficiencies or a missing thymus.

But at this stage, the research is not yet clinical.

“To test it, you have to try different approaches until you are very sure that it will work in patients,” Lagasse said, adding that a clinical trial might not be available for at least eight more years.

The team is already working with liver cells in animal models. Before making any attempts at a human clinical trial, it plans to test human organ growth in animals by transplanting human cells to the test animal.

Lagasse said he’s been traveling to deliver lectures to fellow scientists, and so far his research ideas have been well-received in the scientific community.

“People are very surprised by this approach, but they are very interested,” he said.

And his peers aren’t the only ones impressed by the research proposal.

Lagasse received a new type of grant from the National Institutes of Health — the T-R01 — that is intended only for experimental and high-risk projects.

While there was no requirement for T-R01 applicants to focus on specific areas of research, organ regeneration is an exciting and up-and-coming field, Kristin Abraham, of the National Institutes of Health’s Division of Diabetes, Endocrinology and Metabolic Diseases, said.

“This is an area that is of very high interest to NIH,” she said. “We want to invest in … exploring the idea.”

Abraham said while the National Institutes of Health annually awards grants to researchers, the T-R01 is different because it does not impose a budget cap, require a team member limit or demand preliminary data before the grant is given.

Instead, it is intended to support the development of “edgy” research projects — even if they fail, Abraham said.

“Whether it works or not, we will know at the end if the approach is worth moving forward with or not,” Abraham said, “and that’s important.”

Lagasse and his team are among the 42 groups of researchers awarded the new grant.

In its inaugural year, the awards — which totaled $30 million — were granted to research teams from Harvard, University of North Carolina, Columbia, Stanford and Vanderbilt, among others.

“This will help us tremendously because this will now allow us to have the finances behind this new idea and concept,” Lagasse said of the grant award.

But Lagasse said a research project of this cost is not unusual.

“Of course, we are very happy to have this money. It will be spent well, but it will be no problem to spend it,” he said.

Lagasse said he is optimistic of the research.

In translating the lab work to clinical applications, he said the ultimate goal is to uncover new medical approaches to terminal patients.

“In the long run, I’m hoping to save lives,” he said. “That is the dream of a lot of scientists.”