Chinese Scientists Develop New Bio-Artificial Liver

17 January , Beijing

Chinese scientists have developed a new bio-artificial liver that can help liver failure patients survive long enough for an organ transplant.

Designed to be attached outside a patient’s body, the bio-artificial liver is based on human liver cells, according to research findings published in the new issue of international science magazine Cell Research on Friday.

In its first clinical use last week, the device saved a 61-year-old woman who was dying from acute liver failure, said Prof. Ding Yitao, a member of the research team, which comprised scientists from the Shanghai Institute for Biological Sciences and doctors from Nanjing Drum Tower Hospital.

A bio-artificial liver can help recover patients’ liver functions and prolong their lives so they can wait for suitable donor livers for a transplant, which is currently the only solution to critical cases.