Treatment of acute or chronic liver diseases by cell transplantation is an attractive prospect
because organ shortages greatly restrict liver transplantation. Moreover, a variety of genetic
deficiency states affecting extrahepatic organs are amenable to liver-directed cell therapy.
While the initial clinical experience with liver cell transplantation has been encouraging,
further advances in several areas are necessary to improve these results. Insights into how
engraftment and proliferation of transplanted cells may be modulated to obtain …