Source: WUNC, 6/11/21


Within our bodies, cells survive by being chatty: They rely on a network of blood vessels to communicate with one another and receive vital nutrients. Replicating this cell crosstalk in a lab is less straightforward, but two teams of North Carolina scientists have done it, engineering lab-grown liver tissues that survived for 30 days. This breakthrough, which won the teams first and second prize in NASA’s Vascular Tissue Challenge, could lay the groundwork for better organ models and easier transplants in the future.

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