Abstract
The liver is an organ with very complicated functions, and therefore the prognosis of its functional failure has not so improved. In 1914, Abel made the first experimental attempt to support the damaged liver functions by artificial methods such as hemodialysis or plasmaseparation. Since the end of 1950's, we have also studied biological artificial liver using freezed-dried liver granules. In 1970's the remarkable development in biotechnology, enabled us to study artificial liver support systems. The national project for artificial liver support systems was initiated in 1979, and we engaged in the part of metabolic support system using isolated hepatocytes. In this paper, our progress in the 6-year research will be summarized and the problems in the cooperative work for artificial organs will be discussed.
