A New Chapter for the Mori Lab 

The lung is one of the most complex organs to regenerate. Current bioengineering approaches, including 3D bioprinting and decellularization–recellularization techniques, have shown only limited success. At Columbia University, we established a foundational model for in vivo lung generation (Mori et al., Nature Medicine, 2019). Building on that work, we recently advanced the concept to achieve functional, whole-lung generation (Miura et al., eLife, 2023).

Now based at the Mayo Clinic, our lab is dedicated to further advancing this technology with the goal of enabling in vivo human lung disease modeling and, ultimately, autologous lung transplantation.

MORI ET AL., NATURE MEDICINE, 2019

November 7th, 2019

The global burden of end-stage lung disease remains immense, with millions of patients dying each year due to limited treatment options and a critical shortage of donor organs. While bioengineering strategies have long aimed to regenerate the lung, replicating its extraordinary complexity—comprising billions of highly specialized cells essential for gas exchange—has proven elusive.

In this seminal study, we reported the first experimental evidence of successful in vivo regeneration of a functional lung using a novel approach: conditional blastocyst complementation (CBC), combined with an optimized culture system for pluripotent stem cells.

This achievement laid the foundation for a new era in lung bioengineering, opening the door to large-animal disease modeling and, ultimately, to cell-based therapies for human lung disease.