Liver Regeneration and Tissue Engineering

The liver is one of the largest and most complex organs in the human body. It is a vital organ weighing about 1,500 g and it continuously performs over 500 different functions. As a result, the liver is a vital organ and liver failure in the absence of liver transplantation often results in death to the patient. The shortage of donor livers for transplantation, the demand from industry to develop new drugs and new systems to test their safety, along with the need to better understand the many metabolic pathways of the liver, have been the major driving forces behind liver tissue engineering and advances to create livers synthetically, either in culture or ex vivo or by using animals as in vivo incubators. The liver is also a privileged organ in its ability to regenerate spontaneously in response to acute injury. For these reasons, it has been a major focus of research in tissue engineering and regenerative medicine. However, the ideal source of liver cells (hepatocytes) for synthetic livers has not yet been identified, and numerous research efforts are underway. The ultimate goal of these efforts is to produce an abundant, high quality and readily available source of primary human hepatocytes or synthetic liver tissue constructs for discovery, therapeutic, and diagnostic applications. This chapter explores many recent advances in the field of liver regeneration and liver tissue engineering, and new areas of research and future development.

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