Old organs,new matrix

Research groups at Harvard Medical School and Yale University separately have developed protocols for using decellularized matrices to generate transplantable liver and lung grafts that have functional vascular systems.^1,2 The findings provide further evidence that unusable donor organs could serve as the scaffold for engineering replacement organs.

The majority of scaffolds used in engineered tissue constructs are fabricated de novo from combinations of natural and synthetic biomaterials. However, such scaffolds typically lack the structural equivalent of a vascular network...