An academic center affiliated with the Division of Toxicological Sciences in the Department of Environmental Health Sciences of the Johns Hopkins University Bloomberg School of Public Health. We are tissue engineering liver using the body's natural tissue-replacing cells, progenitors, for toxicity testing.
Tissue engineering is a new field combining cell biology and engineering.
The liver is the organ primarily responsible for metabolizing toxicants and is the main port of entry for toxicants and especially drugs. We isolate progenitors and culture them in a coaxial hollow-fiber bioreactor perfused with media and extracellular matrix containing the molecules that elicit signal pathways common to progenitors in vivo. The cells grow between the two fibers and media flows in compartments that 'sandwich' the cells. The coaxial fibers mimic the very small physiological unit of the liver, the liver lobule. Therefore, we call this a bioartificial liver lobule .