palak United States. Jul 08 2011 22:13. Posts 4601
A man who developed cancer in his windpipe has gotten a new trachea, grown entirely from his own stem cells over two days in a laboratory in Sweden. The operation is remarkable because it's the first time a completely synthetically grown organ has been transplanted into a patient, The Guardian reported. "The synthetic trachea was created by growing the patient's own stem cells on an artificial 'scaffold', which British scientists helped design. Windpipes have been grown from stem cells before, but only using the collagen 'skeletons' of donated tracheas ... Professor Paolo Macchiarini, an Italian expert in regenerative medicine who led the groundbreaking operation, designed the Y-shaped synthetic trachea scaffold with Professor Alexander Seifalian, from University College London." The success of the operation means that patients who need organ transplants could conceivably be able to have them specially grown instead of having to wait for a donor.
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They started several years ago by using a donor trachea as a scaffold to build a new trachea. They stripped away all the cells lining and enclosing the donor trachea, leaving behind only the cartilage-containing skeleton. Using a shoebox-sized bioreactor developed by Harvard Bioscience Inc. of Holliston, Mass., they then seeded some of the patient's own stem cells into the scaffold.
The whole thing was mounted on a rotating drum, similar to a rotisserie for barbecuing chickens. The drum alternately dipped it into a nutrient medium that provided everything needed for the cells to grow and proliferate, and then lifted it out so the cells could get oxygen.
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Instead of using a donor trachea for the scaffold, materials scientist Alexander Seifalian of University College London built one in a lab. The base was a glass tube with dimensions obtained from three-dimensional images of Beyene's trachea. Then Seifalian used a medical plastic called polyethylene glycol to build a scaffold around it. The plastic is very porous, allowing the stem cells to grow into it. The scientists put hormones in the nutrient soup to induce the stem cells to change into the cells normally found in the lining and exterior of a trachea. After two days in the bioreactor, the trachea was implanted in Beyene, where the cells continued to grow and proliferate. The whole process took less than a week.
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Researchers have previously used virtually identical techniques to produce synthetic blood vessels, urethras and bladders. The common denominator in all of those is that the synthetic organs are basically hollow tubes or, in the case of the bladder, a hollow sphere. They may have to have the ability to stretch or shrink slightly in response to natural conditions, but they really have no other function.
Producing a more sophisticated organ, such as a heart, will require researchers to make something that actually carries out a function. In the case of a heart, it would have to beat and open and close valves at the appropriate times.
Also, noted Dr. Alan J. Russell, a tissue engineer at the McGowan Institute for Regenerative Medicine at the University of Pittsburgh, such solid organs have much thicker tissue and thus need an internal system of blood vessels to supply oxygen and nutrients. That is a far more difficult task.
"That's still years away," said Atala, whose team is trying to make synthetic kidneys. "Ninety percent of the patients on a transplant list are waiting on a kidney. We are absolutely working very hard on that."
blackjacki2 United States. Jul 08 2011 22:58. Posts 2582
60 minutes did a piece on regenerative medicine called "growing body parts" a couple months back. pretty interesting video that's easy to find on google
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terrybunny19240 United States. Jul 08 2011 23:44. Posts 13829
Guy was from Iceland and one of the surgeons/researchers was from Iceland,
yet they only mention Sweden, England and the US,
yet they call themselves the Atlantic wire
if poker is dangerous to them i would rank sports betting as a Kodiak grizzly bear who smells blood after you just threw a javelin into his cub - RaiNKhAN
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