Injectable Backup Livers Could Help Thousands Too Sick for Transplant Surgery

Your liver handles roughly 500 jobs, from scrubbing bacteria out of your blood to breaking down every paracetamol you’ve ever swallowed. Lose it and you’re in deep trouble. More than 10,000 Americans sit on the transplant waitlist for one right now, and plenty of those who need a new liver will never qualify for the surgery because they’re simply too sick to survive it. That catch-22 has driven Sangeeta Bhatia’s lab at MIT to ask a different question entirely. What if you didn’t replace the...