#lungs

#lungs

New Type of Cell Found in Human LungsScientists are used to working with mice as analogs for the human body, but some who study lung function were frustrated that mouse lungs don't act like human lungs. A team led by Edward Morrisey of the University of Pennsylvania took tissue samples from healthy human donors to see how they differed from mouse lungs at the cellular level. What they found was a new kind of cell in human lungs that mice didn't have. These cells are called respiratory airway secretory (RAS) cells. RAS cells appear to have two functions. First, they secrete chemicals that maintain the fluid along the bronchioles, which help to makes lungs work efficiently. But they can also act as a sort of stem cell. RAS cells can change themselves into alveolar type 2 (AT2) cells when needed, in order to repair damage to the alveoli. Further research into RAS cells may lead to treatments for damaged lungs, as in COPD. RAS cells have also been found in ferrets, which lead scientists to think that maybe mice are just too small of an animal for their particular studies. Read more about the discovery at Live Science.-via Damn Interesting (Image creditL: UNSHAW) #cell #lungs 

High Energy X-Rays Show COVID-19 Damage to the Lungs' Smallest Blood VesselsHierarchical Phase-Contrast Tomography (HiP-CT) is a new imaging technology that enables 3D mapping, which gives doctors and experts a chance to view an organ on a whole new level. The technology images an organ as a whole and manages to zoom down to cellular level. That’s some high-level imaging right there.Scientists from UCL and the European Synchrotron Research Facility (ESRF) took advantage of the technology to scan donated human organs, including lungs from a donor who got Covid-19. The HiP-CT uses X-rays with the highest energy provided by the European Synchrotron (a particle accelerator) in Grenoble, France. Their X-rays are 100 billion times brighter than a hospital X-ray. This high energy allowed the researchers to view the blood vessels in the lung to see how severe Covid-19 infection ‘shunts’ blood between the two separate systems – the capillaries which oxygenate the blood and those which feed the lung tissue itself. According to Danny Jonigk, Professor of Thoracic Pathology, (Hannover Medical School, Germany),  “by combining our molecular methods with the HiP-CT multiscale imaging in lungs affected by COVID-19 pneumonia, we gained a new understanding how shunting between blood vessels in a lung’s two vascular systems occurs in Covid-19 injured lungs, and the impact it has on oxygen levels in our circulatory system."Image credits: UCL News , Paul Tafforeau#Lungs #Organs #XRays #HiPCT #Imaging