OHSU Turns Mouse into Factory for Human Liver Cells

Oregon Health & Science University researchers have figured out how to turn a mouse into a factory for human liver cells that can be used to test how pharmaceuticals are metabolized. The technique, published in the journal Nature Biotechnology, could soon become the gold standard not only for examining drug metabolism in the liver, which helps scientists determine a drug's toxicity, but also can be used as a platform for testing new therapies against infectious diseases that attack the liver, such as hepatitis C and malaria.

Won't somebody please think of the laptops?

[Anonymous Coward]

Those of us with a touchpad or trackpoint seem to be out of luck.

Re:

[AlmostEarthling]

You posted as AC for a reason, didn't you? ;-)

F.

Re:

[utopianfiat]

You want to talk about intellectual property? What about these cheap liver-cell knockoffs these mice are producing? I'll bet they're tainted with antifreeze or something...

Downside...

[Moraelin]

Downside: after one of those treatments you'll have a craving for cheese and a fear of cats. Then again, for some people it might not be much of a difference ;)

predators develope a taste for human liver?

[Proofof. Chaos]

Of course they will. Obviously, you've never tried human liver with fava beans and a nice chianti. It's delicious.

Re:Downside...

[hcdejong]

That's not so bad. It's the urge to take over the world that really causes problems.

Re:

[Redneck Hacker]

That's what I was just pondering.

Re:

[EvilMonkeySlayer]

Same here! But what are we going to do with a Norwegian sailor, a tennis ball and a horse?

Re:

[BakaHoushi]

Egad, BRILLIANT hcdejong!

Oh, wait, no, no... What if our Earth-conquering desires are constantly defeated by a combination of poor luck, gross incompetence, underestimating and overestimating the competence of the general public, and lack of communication? ...Troz!

Re:

[morgan_greywolf]

That's not so bad. It's the urge to take over the world that really causes problems.

Oh, I thought it was the strange obsession with finding the question that belongs with the answer to life, the universe and everything, which is 42.

Re:

[bobcat7677]

Look at the bright side: At least you know what you are going to do tomorrow night:)

Re:

[martyb]

Downside: after one of those treatments you'll have a craving for cheese and a fear of cats. Then again, for some people it might not be much of a difference ;)

I've found someone who MUST have been treated; he likes dogs and craves cheese. More details here [wikipedia.org]. ;^)

The mouse problem

[dj245]

Confessor: (very slowly and painfully) Well it's not a question of wantiing to be a mouse... it just sort of happens to you. All of a sudden you realize... that's what you want to be.

Interviewer: And when did you first notice these... shall we say... tendencies?

Confessor: Well... I was about seventeen and some mates and me went to a party, and, er... we had quite a lot to drink... and then some of the fellows there ... started handing ... cheese around ... and well just out of curiosity 1 tried a bit

Re:Great, but...

[somersault]

Does it matter if they don't like it? Scientists are doing this kind of thing (research on mice/rats, not successfully creating a factory for liver cells) all the time. If those PETA people are going to let scientists do research on them, fine, but if not they should STFU and let these scientists help sick people get better - I think that's much more important than making sure that a mouse gets to run around in a sewer. It is a bit 'mean' to research on them like this, sure, but if you keep with that line of reasoning then you just shouldn't ever eat anything, because it's all alive at some point, and we have taken advantage of even the vegetables by planting and harvested their organs.

"Angel of the Lord, what are these tortured screams?"
And the angel said unto me,
"These are the cries of the carrots,
the cries of the carrots.
You see, reverend Maynard, tomorrow is harvest day
and to them it is the holocaust."
And I sprang from my slumber drenched in sweat
like the tears of one millions terrified brothers
and roared,
"Hear me now,
I have seen the light,
they have a consciousness,
they have a life,
they have a soul.
damn you!
let the rabbits wear glasses,
save our brothers...can I get an amen?"

Re:

[dhavleak]

Agreed.

If PETA want to rally against Michael Vick, or against testing on animals for research into, say, cosmetics - I'll be the first to join them. But I hope they don't have a problem with research of this sort.

Re:

[swokm]

If PETA want to rally against Michael Vick, or against testing on animals for research into, say, cosmetics - I'll be the first to join them. But I hope they don't have a problem with research of this sort.

Sorry to disappoint you. Absolutists are... well, absolute. Here is a nifty link to their FUD page [peta.org] that explains their wonderful world-view.

Re:

[zippthorne]

"But I hope they don't have a problem with research of this sort."

Indeed, so do the vast majority of their members. Yet despite all evidence to the contrary, they still donate. Weird.

Re:

[BillGod]

It's not even that the mouse would be running around in the sewer. These mice are RAISED to be test subjects. If the idiots at PITA didn't care more for a mouse than it did human life. They would realize that if we were not testing on these mice the mice would never even have been born. Besides the fact it's a FREAKING MOUSE!

Devil's Advocate

[Valdrax]

If the idiots at PITA didn't care more for a mouse than it did human life. They would realize that if we were not testing on these mice the mice would never even have been born.

I'm not much of a PETA supporter. I think that avoiding cruelty to animals is important, but I strongly object to the idea that we have no right to make use of them for food or for research into medicines that save human lives. However, I would like to point out that this line of reasoning is nigh-irrelevant in the context of thei

Re:

[somersault]

Also if some super-advanced alien race thought of us in the way that we think of mice, then we would object. Though the mice don't really have consciousness on the same level, but I'm sure they don't like pain much!

Re:

[emilng]

What if some super-advanced alien race or alien races already thought of us in the way that we think of mice? There are plenty of people claiming to have been abducted. Those people who claimed to have been abducted already object.

The idea of advanced aliens races is plausible given Drake's equation and the idea of aliens abducting us for experimentation is not that far-fetched of an idea considering how many animals we tag and track or breed in captivity. I wonder if there are PETA type groups among ali

Re:

[hesiod]

> What if some super-advanced alien race or alien races already thought of us in the way that we think of mice? There are plenty of people claiming to have been abducted.

Now that's just freaky... I was thinking this exact thing like a half-hour before I started reading the summary and comments for this article.

Re:

[swokm]

Holy crap! It's a good thing your playing Devil's Advocate because it sure sounds like you just equated (here in the USA, for example) people with black skin as animals.

I think you may want to avoid doing that in the future, as most human beings I know find it offensive to be thought of as an animal. In fact, if you were to say that out loud, many places in the US, I really don't think you'd like the outcome. And I'm not sure I'd help you out.

So, no, whatever your position is on mice, it is unrelated, and d

Re:

[emilng]

The parent made no mention of black people as slaves, you just equated slavery with referring to black people.
Slavery is still occurring all over the world and even in parts of the US. It's just not government sanctioned like the way it was in the past.

Re:

[Valdrax]

Two points:

1) Not all slaves were black. Slavery and forced breeding have been practiced world-wide throughout history. It is a function of your own cultural biases that you equated the two and immediately took offense from that when what you should've taken offense at was the suggestion that abuse of slaves can be justified by the reason for their birth.

2) PETA members equate all humans and animals in terms of the rights they share. To a PETA member, there is no difference between the two because both

Re:

[swokm]

I know you think you are being clever. But you're not.

Not all slaves were black.

Good for you, you pass. Look through this thread, nobody said all slaves were black. That would be your assumption. The quote was:

it sure sounds like you just equated (here in the USA, for example) people with black skin as animals

This is correct. In the United States of America, as I point out, there was a long, very culturally significant period of time in which people born with black skin were forced into slavery. The phrase "for example" means I am providing you with a subset of data, so that you may better understand WTF I am talking about, and w

Re:

[Valdrax]

The phrase "for example" means I am providing you with a subset of data, so that you may better understand WTF I am talking about, and why it would be considered offensive. [...] However, you don't have any clue who I am, or what my personal cultural beliefs or biases might be, only those of America at large by my statement.

This is the sort of semantical parsing that I often see when people are embarrassed by having been caught in a bad argument and who are attempting to reframe it in a positive light. Wh

Re:

[QuantumRiff]

Isn't this from a song on track 99 of a tool CD? Can't remember what band it was.. just remember falling asleep listening to my new CD years ago, and waking up in a cold sweat and panic hearing this and the chorus:

This is necessary...
Life feeds on life
feeds on life..

Man, that was creepy!

Re:

[somersault]

Yep, it's from the last track on Undertow (according to Wiki, Tool's first full length album), and is apparently track 69 (which I didn't know because I just ripped the CD).

Good News for Hannibal Lecter

[Ohreally_factor]

Now, if they'd just turn a rat into a factory for fava beans.

Re:

[Ohreally_factor]

While I agree with your sentiment, I'd rather have a rat that is genetically engineered to produce bacon. Bacon's good.

Yes, I was forgetting about Hanibal's brother, Homer Lecter.

Re:

[Opportunist]

Make that java beans and you have geeks all over the planet on your side.

Booze

[AkumaReloaded]

So this means I can drink as much beer as I want without fearing liver damage, right?!!

Re:Booze

[DaveCar]

I was hoping that might be the case too.

You'll probably need to have a mouse grafted on under your right arm though :(

Re:

[E++99]

So this means I can drink as much beer as I want without fearing liver damage, right?!!

Only if you chase it with one of these modified mice.

Re:

[todd1000]

First thing I thought, me needs a few of these liver producing mice ;-) I'll even make a nice home for them as long as they make more liver for me.

Re:

[swokm]

Yes, if you don't mind walking around with a mouse stapled to your chest.

(I hear that might be a turn of for the ladies... OTOH, you could do a killer 'Alien' impression.)

The difference....

[Whiney Mac Fanboy]

The difference between your bad analogy & what tbe OHSU team are doing?

The OHSU team know wtf they're doing. Your team obviously didn't.

Re:

[todd1000]

Moved from crappy PHP to JSP and only the manager and lead developer got canned, maybe a bad choice somewhere...

Interesting...

Some people wanted to do that at our place a few years back, we stuck with crappy PHP and nobody got canned, we still don't use JSP and the company has grown a lot bigger since then (close to 100x), we still use crappy PHP and it works great.

Won't say much more, but it's how you use the tools, I find PHP a lot easier to deal with on the backend, JSP is too closed, convoluted and i

Re:

[pimpimpim]

Anything that will be involved in medical treatment will have to undergo severe and standardized testing, starting in small trials and increasing the scale at every step. This is why a new drug takes about 10 years to be developed and it should stay that way, you cannot make this a parallel process without risking lives. Only when the severity of the disease exceeds any negative side effects the new treatment can have (e.g. very seldom high-mortality diseases) will the new treatment be set in at a higher s

Liver let die

[dotslashdot]

As they say, "Liver let die". Sorry.

Re:

[Mnemen]

Oh...ouch...that pun was painfully funny. Good one.

Animal Rights

[Moniker42]

I'm sure PETA, RSPCA etc will all have something to say about this. But i see it less immoral that we're using mice (at their expense) to end human suffering rather than to test cosmetics or kill simply because they're in our home. At least this kind of animal cruelty (as it could be construed) has a negating good karma benefit.

Re:

[swokm]

Uh, no I don't think that's what was said at all. Care to elaborate, AC?

My concern is that in the last several posts above, several mention these clowns [sfgate.com] and then essentially :rolleyes:

Why mention them at all, and give them page-space and mind-share? That is what they live for; if you don't always agree with them, then why do their work for them? As our fearless leader often inappropriately chimes: "We don't want to embolden the enemy."

I think we should experiment on mice to save lives because I think people

Re:

[swokm]

The reason people casually dismiss animals as non-thinking is so they can live with the idea of eating meat and using animal products for commerce. A close-up analysis of how their brains work would tell you that they aren't all that different from humans. People need to realize this.

I don't casually dismiss animals as non-thinking, and I don't disregard that they are very similar to humans (go mammals!). I agree with you, however, that more humans -- especially here in the US -- need to understand their responsibility as stewards of the entire planet, its plants and animals.

Death happens. Every time we step, we alter the ground beneath us in some fundamental way, for some species of life (a sprout, a spore, a gnat, a bacteria). To think that we even get the choice to not participate i

Re:

[improfane]

If many mice are gonna die to save us, the least we can do is provide mouse health care.

While I wouldn't deny life saving produce from animals, on another level I know it is wrong. We are certainly more complicated than other animals. Believing we are 'better' is another thing...

Better at what? There are many things mouse are better us at.

Re:

[Moniker42]

I'm not necessarily saying "the ends justify the means" but that i find it less morally problematic if there are actually benefits in the end.

I'll take it for granted that it's "immoral" to kill someone (i think so), but is it immoral to kill someone if you're stranded on a mountain as a member of a group of plane-crash victims with no other sustenance? I'm not so sure that it is, if it means more will live.

It's an extreme case; but what I'm saying is not "the ends justify the means" but "because of the

Re:"good karma benefit"?

[macraig]

I'm sure the mouse feels terribly proud to be born with a fucked-up liver just so it can be repeatedly operated upon during its short but oh-so-meaningful life to provide alien cells to possibly save the lives of a few humans taking overpriced drugs from profit-obsessed corporations, to deal with conditions likely caused by their own overconsumption and excesses.

Yeah, if I were one of those crippled mice I'd be terribly proud. I know that as a member of the species responsible for engineering these Jem'Had

Re:

[swokm]

Yeah, if I were one of those crippled mice I'd be terribly proud. I know that as a member of the species responsible for engineering these Jem'Hadar-like mice dependent upon this ketracel-white-like NTBC, I'm also terribly proud.

Would that be more or less proud than a mouse that was run over on the highway unnoticed? Is that considered a more honorable death in mouse culture (sorry, I am not familiar with the social conventions and religious beliefs of mice)? Or does it really not matter?

If YOU had and inherited liver disease... wait, did you say Jem'Hadar? You mean... they are fearsome warriors armed with intergalactic travel and energy weapons?! Well, why didn't you say so -- that's completely different!

I, for one, would like to

Re:

[macraig]

You need look no further than your own nose to see who's self-obsessed in this room, buddy... it's called homo-centrism. Or perhaps in your case, even xenophobia.

Re:

[TheVelvetFlamebait]

Being slashdot, animal rights ranks right up there with "think of the children" arguments.

Am I the only one...

[Opportunist]

...whose first thought was "Great, a spare liver on my desk."?

I think it's not healthy that your first association with "mouse" is an input device and not a furry rodent. Guess it's time to check whether that yellow ball is still on top of that blue room.

Re:

[Beyond Opinion]

Don't worry, it's not just you. After reading the title, I thought: "Such a simple piece of hardware, and look what they found to do with it." Too bad, that would have been cool.

Re:

[envelope]

My thought was, "if they can do that with a mouse, think of what they could do with a track ball!"

Giant mouse

[Kohath]

The giant mouse looked like this [typepad.com] and it stole my cookie.

Hmmm...

[ShiNoKaze]

Wasn't it liver cells that they injected into other mice to give regeneration? [bbc.co.uk] So... if they can make the mice make human liver cells...

Re:

[pathos49]

Specifically what was done: The strain of mouse Grompee uses has a defect in tyrosine metabolism, Without drug, the tyrosine kills the host liver cells. Give drug and that pathway is shunted and cells do not die. Grompee then takes the mouse off drug AND injects human hepatocytes into the portal vein (direct path to liver) where the human hepatoctes repopulate the liver. The crug on off cycle can be repeated up to 4 times (so says the press release.

While the human hepatocytes repopulate the mouse live

Re:

[ShiNoKaze]

Well I guess my question would be: Can we get a strain of the regenerative mouse that also has this tyrocine deficiency and inject human liver cells into it to have them give the regenerative capability to a human host who could then have them injected into. Probably not after reading it, as the regenerative capability transference was occuring with foetal liver stem cells, not adult ones. But sounded cool when I thought of it.

Re:

[pathos49]

INteresting comments. Your intuition is better than you think. The adult liver cell is considered to be the stem cell compartment for the adult liver. Grompee created this mouse strain to show that a hemopoetic stem cell also exists. He did serial hepatocyte transplants of "normal" littermates and used a purified hemopeotic cell line to show the compartment existed. Regeneration of the liver is one of the functions of the liver. Think about it....Evolution has selected the liver that is most capable

Re:

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

correct me if I'm wrong...

[DragonTHC]

isn't the Human Liver a factory for Human Liver cells ?

shouldn't they be doing research into organs that don't regenerate by themselves?

Re:

[Raptoer]

Perhaps, but the purpose is to be able to test drugs and diseases more effectively on mice because their livers are now using the same cells as a human liver.
Besides, the researchers probably specialize in livers, so having them research some other organ would be like telling a programmer to go design a bridge.

Who worries about hep C any more?

[helicologic]

can be used as a platform for testing new therapies against infectious diseases that attack the liver, such as hepatitis C...

I'm more worried by the newer diseases like hepatitis C++.

In related news...

[suitepotato]

...the Internet is turning computer mice into bacteria factories.