According to organ donation statistics from the Health Resources & Services Administration, over 113,000 men, women, and children are on the national transplant waiting list as of July 2019. Another person is added to the waiting list every 10 minutes and 20 people die each day waiting for a transplant.

As these statistics highlight, there is a tremendous need for obtaining viable organs for people that are in need of a transplant. It is because of this, that scientists and researchers are exploring ways of using stem cells to potentially grow fully functional organs.

In a CIRM-supported study, Dr. Hiromitsu Nakauchi at Stanford University, in collaboration with Dr. Wellington Cardoso at Columbia University, were able to grow fully functional lungs in mouse embryos using transplanted stem cells. The full study, published in Nature Medicine, suggests that it may be possible to grow human lungs in animals and use them for patients in dire need of transplants or to study new lung treatments.

In the study, the researchers took stem cells and implanted them into modified mouse embryos that either lacked the stem cells necessary to form a lung or were not able to produce enough cells to make a lung. It was found that the implanted stem cells formed fully functional lungs that allowed the mice to live well into adulthood. Additionally, there were no signs of the mouse’s body rejecting the lung tissue composed of donor stem cells.

In a press release, Dr. Cardoso expressed optimism for the study and the potential the results hold:

“Millions of people worldwide who suffer from incurable lung diseases die without treatment due to the limited supply of donor lungs for transplantation. Our study shows that it may eventually be possible to develop new strategies for generating human lungs in animals for transplantation as an alternative to waiting for donor lungs.”