First lab-grown oesophagus successfully implanted in pigs | Science, C

Scientists in the UK have created the first lab-grown oesophagus and implanted it in pigs, which have been able to use it to swallow food.

In the study, scientists from Great Ormond Street Hospital (GOSH) and University College London (UCL) showed that a pig donor oesophagus can have cells removed, be repopulated with a recipient’s own cells and implanted in the recipient to restore the organ’s function.

The hospital said it marks a major step to carrying out personalised regenerative treatments for children born with life-threatening oesophageal conditions.

Dr Marco Pellegrini, senior researcher at UCL Great Ormond Street Institute of Child Health, said the technology “could allow us to build a child a new oesophagus, using their own cells, collected in a surgery they are having anyway, combined with a ready-prepared scaffold from pig tissue”.

Other studies have previously shown parts of this technology, but this is the first time the full process has been completed with such success, the study’s authors said.

Transplant ‘would be life-changing’

Sean McIntyre, father of two-year-old Casey from London, who has undergone multiple operations, said that his son “has spent half of his life in hospital, and hopefully he won’t remember, but the memories will never leave us”.

He added: “We’ve had to learn things as new parents that we never considered would be part of our family life, from feeding him through a stomach tube to what to do if the hospital call with an urgent update in the middle of the night.

“To look at him, he’s just amazing, and we are very proud of him.

“Whatever the team did for him was really a miracle, but the idea that there could be one operation early in your child’s life, that could transplant a working piece of oesophagus, and then we could move on, would be life-changing.”