IIS Aragón researcher, Pedro Baptista, participates in the large-scale expansion of liver stem cells

An international team of scientists, working with liver organoids, has managed to multiply the generation of cells in a bioreactor to increase the possibilities of treatments for liver diseases

These advances will allow the creation of bioengineered organs on demand in the future

Peter the Baptist, researcher ARAID at the Aragón Health Research Institute (IIS Aragón), has been part of an international group of scientists that has managed to expand adult liver stem cells on a large scale, which will make it possible to treat patients with liver diseases and create bioengineered organs on demand. in the future with their own cells. The results of the project, in which Baptista has been involved for four years and of which he is senior author together with two members of his team (Natalia Sánchez Romero and Iris Pla Palacín), have recently been published in volume 72 of the prestigious international scientific journal 'Hepatology', the publication of the American Association for the Study of Liver Diseases (AASLE, in its acronym in English).

This team of scientists led by the Dutch Bart Spee and the pioneer in this field, Hans Clevers, works with organoids, complex structures created in the laboratory that resemble the organ they represent, but without having all of its functions. The novelty of the research lies in the expansion of cells in suspension in a culture medium in a bioreactor, which, being able to move freely, form structures and proliferate in a much larger quantity. Until now, to achieve this result, stem cells from organoids were placed in a gel, but the process was much slower and more laborious.

Baptista highlights the importance of this project. “From a biopsy of a liver from a patient or a donor we can isolate the stem cells, expand them on a large scale and, in the future, inject them again to be able to treat a liver disease, whether cirrhosis or autoimmune diseases. We can generate millions of organoids, freeze them and screen them with potential drugs to treat the same disease that has developed for different reasons,” he explains. “But not only do we have the ability to create the necessary amount of stem cells, but it allows us to differentiate these from the liver cells we need, whether hepatocytes or bile duct cells, in a more efficient way,” he adds.

In Zaragoza this method is already followed to carry out the expansion of organoids. “We hope to be able to adopt it to work with stem cells from other organs, such as the intestine or the lung,” says Baptista. These advances, he highlights, would be “very useful, for example, to investigate COVID-19, since being able to generate billions of cells facilitates the screening of drugs and new drugs to treat emerging diseases, and will also benefit patients with diseases.” chronic or that need new bioengineered livers.”

Baptista, who belongs to the Digestive Pathology group of the IIS Aragón directed by Angel Lanas, is also the principal investigator of one of the projects related to COVID-19 that IIS Aragón is currently working on. Specifically, the study aims to test existing FDA-approved antiviral drugs and immune system modulators in a human 3D lung system infected by SARS-COV-2, allowing the identification of the drugs that work best against this virus.

About IIS Aragón
The IIS Aragón is the Health Research Institute of the hospital complex formed by the Teaching and University Hospitals “Hospital Clínico Universitario Lozano Blesa” and “Hospital Universitario Miguel Servet” and Primary Health Care. The University of Zaragoza and the Aragonese Institute of Health Sciences are associated with this hospital complex through different legal instruments.

The objectives of the IIS Aragón are to bring together basic and applied, clinical and health services research; create a quality research, care and teaching environment to which health professionals, training specialists and postgraduate and undergraduate students are exposed, as well as constitute the ideal place for attracting talent and the location of large scientific facilities. technological.