Mini stomachs grown in lab
Clumps of gastric cells could help researchers study disease
By Meghan Rosen
Itty-bitty seeds of human stomachs can now bud in plastic dishes.
By bathing stem cells in a brew of growth-boosting chemicals, scientists have kick-started the construction of crude organs about as big as the head of a pin. These primitive balls of gastric tissue — the first to be cooked up in the lab — resemble the stomachs of developing fetuses. The lab-grown bellies represent the latest in a line of do-it-yourself organlike cell clumps, including livers, brains and guts (SN: 12/28/13, p. 20).