University of Minnesota scientists create breathing rat's lungs

First a beating rat’s heart. Now breathing rat’s lungs.

The way the University of Minnesota is going, a liver, kidney and pancreas can’t be far behind.

Researchers at the Masonic Cancer Center and medical school said Monday it has grown breathing lungs from a rat in laboratory, the second time in two years the university has achieved a potentially significant breakthrough in organ science.

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In 2008, Dr. Doris Taylor drew international attention for successfully growing — and keeping alive — a beating rat’s heart in a jar. Taylor’s work has fueled hopes that scientists can one day grow replacement organs for patients who would typically wait for transplants. The university this year spun off Miromatrix Inc., a startup meant to commercialize Dr. Taylor’s work.

This time, researchers used methods similar to Taylor’s technology. The scientists stripped cells from a rat’s lung, a process known as decellularization, leaving only a scaffold of the original organ. Researchers then implanted stem cells from unborn mice into the scaffold, which grew into breathing lungs with the help of a tiny, makeshift ventilator.

“What we did is develop a decellularized murine lung matrix bioreactor system that could be used to evaluate the potential of stem cells to regenerate lung tissue,” lead scientist Angela Panoskaltsis-Mortari said in a statement.

Mortari envisions growing healthy lungs that can be implanted into patients suffering from irreversible lung diseases like emphysema, idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis, primary pulmonary arterial hypertension and cystic fibrosis.