Australian Scientists Grow Replica Human Lungs

Scientists Grow Replica Human Lungs as An Alternative to Animal Experimenting

On Friday 7th April, Chrzanowski and a couple of colleagues published a paper about a new technology that went beyond bio-printing. The paper was published in the peer-reviewed journal known as Biomaterials Research.

The paper discloses that the team has successfully grown replica human lungs. A venture that has taken him over 13 years to complete. The “lungs” are in the team’s laboratory at the University of Sydney Nano Institute. Also included in the paper are instructions on how to grow similar lungs if you have the resources.

Contained in a plastic tube, these “lungs” have very little resemblance physically to human lungs. As mentioned by The Guardian, they resemble a small blob of jelly that has been spread across a thin membrane.

Wojciech Chrzanowski, a Polish professor of nanomedicine, moved to Australia 13 years ago. His goal at the time was to establish a nano-bioengineering group at the University of Sydney Nano Institute as The Guardian reports. At the moment, he is the deputy director of the university.

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In his early days at the university, Chrzanowski organized a seminar on bio-printing. Bio-printing is a concept similar to 3D printing. Cells are taken from a patient or rather subject and then cultivated to produce enough matter “ink”, that is used to print a model of a tissue that will be used for medical research.

According to Chrzanowski’s idea, these lab-printed models would be used to test drugs and disease mechanisms instead of using live animals. Chrzanowski went on to add that, only about three people attended the seminar and everyone told him that it would never work. Well, fast forward, 13 years later and it looks like it does work.

As per The Guardian, Chrzanowski finds it “heartbreaking” to recall some of his early scientific work. More so research that involved animal testing which as he puts it, was inevitable in his field.

“The moment you start working in a lab and have to start squeezing and cutting animals, you feel sorry for them,” Chrzanowski said. He specifically mentions a trial he worked on that involved baboons. Chrzanowski adds that these intelligent creatures start hiding, screaming, and/or throwing things. “They know that something wrong is going to be done to them. It is heartbreaking,” he said.

According to The Guardian, a distressed Chrzanowski also recalled a particularly sad case when he worked with a vegan scientist. The scientist, shocked and disgusted, ended up vomiting in the laboratory after seeing the inhumane conditions the animals were put through.

In this situation, like any innovator and pioneer, Chrzanowski was presented with a choice. He could accept the situation as a reality of working in the industry or find a better way to do things. Well, on the matter of the choice, that’s history, and the results speak for themselves.

This is not the first attempt scientists have had at developing replica lungs. However, as Chrzanowski reports, these lungs are too static and too simple. Actual human lungs are so much more complex, constantly expanding, changing, and moving. The replica lungs by Chrzanowski and his team and different from previous versions and similar to actual human lungs in that they possess the quality of physiological perfusion, or movement, of fluid through the cells.

Cultivating and developing a lung takes 28 days to grow in the lab. Chrzanowski also explains that any person with basic skills in cell culture is capable of carrying out the entire process of lung growth.

Through the Guardian, Chrzanowski identifies two key features that make the lungs very special. One is that it is possible to collect cells from different patients and develop lungs enabling a researcher to test personalized treatment.

Another feature is the size of the developed lungs. Despite being merely millimeters long, the lungs are relatively large in comparison to the alternatives. The size allows for multiple experiments on a lung which means a researcher is able to measure immunological responses, look at the beating of cilia, and the secretion of mucus all on one model.

However, there is a glaring limitation to Chrzanowski’s model lungs. A disease or drug does not affect a single organ (the lungs) alone. Other parts of the body are affected too and therefore studying only using the model lungs means there is no information on how other organs react (unless they are tested in similar conditions but separately).

Chrzanowski said he hopes to build and connect multiple organs so as to allow them to communicate and function together. But as he admits, this is decades away!