We live, and are alive as we have our body organ, the Liver. Liver does many functions for our body. In its own illnesses such as Cirrhosis and Hepatitis C, it functions lesser than normal. Here this it has to be replaced with a donor liver by transplantation. But lo, donors are not readily available.
In any other illnesses of our body, our liver metabolizes the medicines that we take for curing them. In experimenting with, and testing the safety of newer medicines we cannot use humans for the study or depend upon animal liver for that. For this purpose and for transplantation, researchers from Wake Forest Institute for Regenerative Medicine, North Carolina have made an artificial human liver! It is of much smaller size (about the size of a walnut) when compared to the huge human liver. It is called Mini Liver. It has been got by seeding human liver cells on animal liver cells. The researchers found it to have normal liver functions as that of the human liver. They hope that it may take about five years to make it available in the hospitals after further research and development on it.
It will be a wonder mini liver that could save lives of hundreds who wait for transplantation, and will also aid in discovering newer medicines for the cure of many known or unknown diseases!
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