Medicine
The human lungs: difficult in the laboratory to recreate
As an Alternative to animal breeding researchers in artificial lungs. But that is easier said than done: The lung is one of the most complex organs, the mother nature has created.
In his Hand, josuى Sznitman a transparent dish, about five inches tall and a few millimeters thick. Inside run fine). The Whole thing looks like a tree-trunk into several smaller Branches split.
“You can the small channels barely see,” says Sznitman, assistant Professor of Biomedical engineering at the Technion, the Technical University of Israel in Haifa. “This is not surprising: The air passages in our lungs are smaller than a Millimeter.”
The disc, which Sznitman just holds, is his Version of an artificial lung. First, she sees something disappointing – only on closer Look, it is fascinating.
What josuى Sznitman holds in his Hand is his Version of an artificial lung
Miniaturarbeit
Lungs in the laboratory to create, does not mean using big Gewebemassen herumzuhantieren how to get to it probably in a Science Fiction Film would see. Instead, immerse the researchers in a world of the very Small.
Human lungs consist of millions of tiny Airways in the microscopic air bubbles from end to end. Where does the actual gas exchange between lungs and blood. The lung tissue is thin, its surface, however, huge: it adds up to about 100 square meters. Lungs are basically huge sponges.
The channels in the Interior of Sznitmans plastic Windows have a diameter of only 100 microns, so a tenth of a millimetre. In these channels grows, the researchers cells. A nasty piece of work, as he says: “We are fighting quite a bit. It is like a cooking recipe: It must ripen.” But it also need a good bit of luck. Jokingly, he adds: “The stars in the sky must of the day in the correct constellation, for it to work. Mostly we fail, but every now and again, it works.”
Cells grow also in microscopically small channels – sometimes
The young scientist is ambitious. His goal: in the laboratory a lung to recreate the reality as accurately as possible maps.
Better Medicines
Currently, the human lungs have a “black box” for Doctors, so called Sznitman it. “You can’t go to his doctor and say: I have difficulty Breathing, can you tell me which part of my lung is not well air gets?” Despite x-rays and spirometry – a technique that the General lung function measures – we still know very little about the lungs, says Sznitman.
The more difficult it is for researchers to develop drugs that are inhaled. For asthma patients, for example: their Airways are chronically inflamed and the muscles to pull themselves together – that makes you Breathe hard or even impossible. Asthmatic patients to inhale, therefore, of medicine, of the cramping resolves, or the inflammation in the long term combat.
The lungs: a giant sponge
According to Sznitman “, today’s technology is terribly bad work” when it comes to these drugs in the lungs to get. “When a doctor orders a 3-year-old child a medication for Inhalation are – even if it a respiratory Mask used, then go just 5 or 10 per cent of them in the lungs.” In adults were about 50 percent. “A majority of the drug comes not to where it is needed.”
The same is also true for people with cystic fibrosis, a genetic disease that, among other things, the opponents ‘ concerns. The patients have difficulties breathing and suffer from frequent lung infections. You need antibiotics inhalation. Sznitmans research is to help these patients in the future easier and more efficient to be able to treat.
Cross-section through the lung tissue of a mammal
Expanded Alveoli
Claus-Michael Lehrs artificial lung looks a bit different. His laboratory at the University of the Saarland in Saarbrücken breeds Lungenzellteppiche on membranes. “Our lungs are more or less expanded alveoli,” he explains. The lung tissue it receives from the operating theatres, for example, if a Patient has a Tumor was removed. The human alveoli is fixed he is then on the membranes of the size of a postcard.
While Sznitman in Israel is investigating how substances in the lungs to carry, is a teaching to be more interested in the substances from the lungs into the blood. “How the blood-brain barrier there is a barrier between the lungs and the blood system – the air-blood-barrier”, says Lehr. The power of the aerosols – even drugs – making the Transition difficult. With its Lungenzellmembranen provides the pharmacist the barrier in the laboratory – and examined how they overcome.
Claus-Michael Lehr has artificial lungs in his lab
Lehr hopes that it is also possible, medicines to change, that you are inhaled instead of injected. Insulin, for example: The can the intestinal wall is not going to happen, therefore it can not be in the form of a tablet administered. But it may be a Insulinspray on nanoparticles, right through develop, that the blood-air barrier. The daily injections would be for diabetics are eliminated.
Sznitman and teaching now have the research funds requested, in order together to work on projects. They hope that their research will contribute to the spongy complex Organ lungs a bit better to understand. But josuى Sznitman is aware that his artificial lungs is still far from the reality away. “We make maybe a fraction of the reality, but nothing that the full complexity comes close. For me as a researchers, this is often difficult to accept.”