science
In March 2026, researchers at Great Ormond Street Hospital and University College London published a technique using a donor animal's oesophagus as scaffolding, reseeded with a recipient's own cells, to grow a new working section of the organ without needing immunosuppressant drugs.
UK researchers bioengineered and successfully transplanted a section of the oesophagus, the tube connecting the throat to the stomach. The technique took a patient's own muscle cells, reprogrammed them into stem cells, and seeded them onto a donor animal's oesophagus used purely as a structural scaffold, growing new tissue that could contract and support feeding in an animal model, all published in Nature Biotechnology.
The trachea, the windpipe carrying air to the lungs, and the bladder are both organs researchers have separately attempted to bioengineer in other studies, but this particular 2026 breakthrough centered specifically on the oesophagus and its role in swallowing and digestion, not breathing or urine storage.
Because the finished graft is built almost entirely from the patient's own cells rather than donor tissue, the body doesn't recognize it as foreign, meaning recipients could potentially avoid a lifetime of immune-suppressing drugs that organ transplant patients usually require.
science
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