New Technique May Help Treat Liver Disease

Associated Press

WASHINGTON: Genetic manipulation of liver cells is pointing toward a promising new therapy that one day might offer hope for the 20 million Americans who suffer from liver disease.

Laboratory experiments that restored normal function in rats that had lost 90 percent of their livers suggest that the genetic manipulation of cells grown in test tubes could rejuvenate failing liver functions.

The study, to be published in the journal Science, found a way to grow millions of liver cells, called hepatocytes, and then transplant them into rats that had virtually no liver function. The new liver cells took over the job of the failing organ.

``I have no idea when we could use it in humans'' because the technique is still so experimental, said Dr. Philippe Leboulch of Brigham and Women's Hospital, the chief researcher on the study.

But he said the technique offers the promise of one day helping stave off organ failure in patients waiting for a liver transplant.

Leboulch, an assistant professor of medicine at Harvard medical school, said transplanted liver cells have been used in patients with failing organs before, but the therapy had limited success because doctors were unable to isolate enough liver cells.

The new technique uses a gene to solve this problem.

Leboulch and his colleagues inserted into lab liver cells a cancer gene that forced those cells to start reproducing without limit.

Although the cells multiplied by the millions, they could not be transplanted because in the body they would be like a cancer, growing out of control.

To solve this problem, the researchers treated the cells with an enzyme that acts like a ``genetic scissors. It cut out and deactivated the inserted cancer gene, halting the rapid growth of new cells.

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