Artificial organs

[Dock1234]

---

Members don't see this ad.

Lot of research is going on, and if someday in the next 10-20 years it will be possible to clone all the organs from patients own cells (heart, lungs, kidneys, liver etc) from stem cells or with some other technique replace them, will there be massive amount of unemployment for doctors?

Sure there would still be need doctors, but if all the chronicle diseases of internal organs could be cured with transplant without no rejection problems sure lot of doctors workload would become obsole. Some specialties would not change at all, but think about something like nephrology, cardiology or "other one organ-specialty".

Sorry for bad english, not native speaker.

 

[Sephiroth]

this would likely be an expensive and highly invasive option, and so probably not the first go-to, except for cases when it is specifically what they need. E.g. cystic fibrosis patients need lung transplant by some point, though for them they likely wouldn't want one genetically identical, as that would still posses the CF genes. And there would still be a need for transplant surgeons 😀

 

[dyeguy21]

Lot of research is going on, and if someday in the next 10-20 years it will be possible to clone all the organs from patients own cells (heart, lungs, kidneys, liver etc) from stem cells or with some other technique replace them, will there be massive amount of unemployment for doctors?

Sure there would still be need doctors, but if all the chronicle diseases of internal organs could be cured with transplant without no rejection problems sure lot of doctors workload would become obsole. Some specialties would not change at all, but think about something like nephrology, cardiology or "other one organ-specialty".

Sorry for bad english, not native speaker.

It certainly seems like the holy grail, but keep in mind a lot of stuff doesn't require a "new" something to be put in. You can't really fix a cold or a bacterial infection by putting a new ____ in.

A lot of chronic disease courses would certainly change, but you'd still need doctors to diagnose and administer treatment. The industry would change to absorb the new technology. Until Watson has arms, legs, and can dynamically interpret information, in addition to being affordable for all hospitals....I think we'll be okay.

 

[theseeker4]

Lot of research is going on, and if someday in the next 10-20 years it will be possible to clone all the organs from patients own cells (heart, lungs, kidneys, liver etc) from stem cells or with some other technique replace them, will there be massive amount of unemployment for doctors?

Sure there would still be need doctors, but if all the chronicle diseases of internal organs could be cured with transplant without no rejection problems sure lot of doctors workload would become obsole. Some specialties would not change at all, but think about something like nephrology, cardiology or "other one organ-specialty".

Sorry for bad english, not native speaker.

Transplant is quite risky, and will most likely be for a long time to come. Even if transplanting organs becomes as easy as taking an aspirin, this type of therapy would almost certainly be more expensive than early intervention and management of chronic conditions. Sure, if you could grow a new kidney in the future, dialysis won't be needed anymore, but there is a huge range of conditions and interventions prior to organ failure that would require replacement.

The ability to create a perfect match organ in the future would only put a very limited number of treatments out of business, since living with a chronic condition until an organ finally fails before replacing it, without any treatment or intervention before that failure, is unlikely to ever be the standard of care.

 

[CaptainSSO]

^Why would you think you would want to leave in a diseased organ as long as possible?

That would be the opposite of what you would want--if you could, you would replace the failing organ ASAP. While not functioning properly, it could not only damage the rest of your body, but the medications you're taking are more likely than not causing some sort of deleterious sides.

The sooner you could replace an organ with an artificial one (note: I am assuming these artificial organs are just as good as the original, if this is not the case, than yea, my argument would be wrong), the better.

 

[Dock1234]

^Why would you think you would want to leave in a diseased organ as long as possible?

That would be the opposite of what you would want--if you could, you would replace the failing organ ASAP. While not functioning properly, it could not only damage the rest of your body, but the medications you're taking are more likely than not causing some sort of deleterious sides.

The sooner you could replace an organ with an artificial one (note: I am assuming these artificial organs are just as good as the original, if this is not the case, than yea, my argument would be wrong), the better.

And thats why there would be very little to do for most of the doctors, because basically every disease in internal organs could be cured before it would really need any treatment. Of course there are little thinks that would be better to cure with traditional way like cold, but wouldn't there be very much little for doctors to do if every chronic disease could be cured with one transplant-operation?

 

[spaceshark]

Don't worry my friend. If this does happen it will probably happen in another country without religious fanatics and busybodies (animal rights noobs and lawmakers) getting in the way of scientific progress in the field.

 

[lunt]

If the entire population gets its kidneys/liver/heart/lungs/arteries retransplanted once per 10 years, we're gonna need to convert all the non-surgery doctors to surgeons in order to satisfy the demand. Medicine will adapt, it won't die out.

+diagnosis, +consulting.

Hell, perhaps for 10000000$ I can pay a doctor to remake a new me and transplant my current brain into the new one. If 1/1000 of the population did that, then every doctor could do 1 operation and retire.

 

[CaptainSSO]

^Commas and/or scientific notation are your friends.

 

[officedepot]

.

 

[theseeker4]

^Why would you think you would want to leave in a diseased organ as long as possible?

That would be the opposite of what you would want--if you could, you would replace the failing organ ASAP. While not functioning properly, it could not only damage the rest of your body, but the medications you're taking are more likely than not causing some sort of deleterious sides.

The sooner you could replace an organ with an artificial one (note: I am assuming these artificial organs are just as good as the original, if this is not the case, than yea, my argument would be wrong), the better.

That is assuming replacing a failing organ is as cost effective and low-risk as taking a pill or shot to manage the condition. Sure, some day we may get to the point where you take a pill and grow a new kidney/liver/heart/etc. already functioning and in place in your body. I highly doubt we will reach that point in our or our children's lifetimes though. If and when we can grow new organs, it will most likely require transplant and removal of the failing organ, a risky procedure in and of itself, as well as numerous unforeseen hazards and complications that will need to be worked out.

In the distant future, when the technology is perfected, absolutely take a pill and grow a new organ at the first signs of organ damage, but that is far enough down the road we have no need at all to worry about implications on our jobs as future physicians.

 

[soundnin]

... more like the next 200 years. I think you vastly overestimate the current state of the research and how extraordinarily complex something like this is.

+1. tissue engineering is one of the most hyped fields in popular science. laypeople always ask me "so why are you still working on it?" when they read about some artificial _____ that was done in immunocompromised animals with a half year time point or something silly like that on some blog 😛

 

[link2swim06]

+1. tissue engineering is one of the most hyped fields in popular science. laypeople always ask me "so why are you still working on it?" when they read about some artificial _____ that was done in immunocompromised animals with a half year time point or something silly like that on some blog 😛

Ehh I dont think 200 years is accurate either. They have already grow/transplanted an esophagus and had long terms success.

That is already a viable treatment.

Within 50 years I bet we can grow most organs. 50 years ago we didn't even know hypertension caused heart disease nor how to manage it.

 

[soundnin]

Ehh I dont think 200 years is accurate either. They have already grow/transplanted an esophagus and had long terms success.

That is already a viable treatment.

Within 50 years I bet we can grow most organs. 50 years ago we didn't even know hypertension caused heart disease nor how to manage it.

agree to disagree

there honestly hasn't been much progress in the field for decades

 

[link2swim06]

agree to disagree

there honestly hasn't been much progress in the field for decades

Alright, but when I am 74, I am coming back to this thread to prove you wrong.

 

[dr zaius]

Ehh I dont think 200 years is accurate either. They have already grow/transplanted an esophagus and had long terms success.

That is already a viable treatment.

Within 50 years I bet we can grow most organs. 50 years ago we didn't even know hypertension caused heart disease nor how to manage it.

Don't forget bladders, too.

Saying there hasn't been advances in the field in decades is a little short sighted and spits in the face of many researchers. Sure, there aren't many complete organs grown in a lab ready to transplant, but many mechanisms of organ development, especially the role of mechanical forces and how to implement those in the lab, have been elucidated.

Right now the big advances are coming in the form of regenerative medicine. This makes sense because we haven't quite figured out how to make perfect bioreactors yet with the best bioreactor being the human body. Also, the problem of scaling up production is a huge issue.

 

[AFMD]

When was the last time any of you when to the doctor for something that could have been cured with an organ transplant more effectively than current treatments?

 

[soundnin]

Don't forget bladders, too.

Saying there hasn't been advances in the field in decades is a little short sighted and spits in the face of many researchers. Sure, there aren't many complete organs grown in a lab ready to transplant, but many mechanisms of organ development, especially the role of mechanical forces and how to implement those in the lab, have been elucidated.

Right now the big advances are coming in the form of regenerative medicine. This makes sense because we haven't quite figured out how to make perfect bioreactors yet with the best bioreactor being the human body. Also, the problem of scaling up production is a huge issue.

maybe because i work in the field myself in the trenches that it feels that way to me. there are an infinite number of non-trivial issues (such as the big ones you mentioned) that it feels way too early to be talking about any translational product.

a prominent leader in the field summed it up quite nicely at a conference i went to a few months ago. he compared the proof-of-principle classical experiments done 15-20 years ago in the field of regenerative medicine to the first man on the moon. we sent the first man to the moon over 40 years ago - how come we're not living in space now? as were these classical experiments, that was a huge leap in progress that requires many many decades of incremental work to catch up to it (in case you're curious he was referring to the iconic ear made from a biological scaffold and seeded cells on the back of a nude mouse circa mid 1990's).

i agree there are lots of great research done on mechanisms but mechanistic insight is a completely different issue than application of knowledge, and that's kind of the bottleneck in the science and technology right now. too many things that have been established in-vitro are a new and very different black box when placed in the context of a multi-organ system. an even greater box of problems explode when we factor in an intact immune system.

it's a field with lots of promise, but at the moment there is still a very large disconnect between the science being done and clinical application.

 

[dr zaius]

maybe because i work in the field myself in the trenches that it feels that way to me. there are an infinite number of non-trivial issues (such as the big ones you mentioned) that it feels way too early to be talking about any translational product.

a prominent leader in the field summed it up quite nicely at a conference i went to a few months ago. he compared the proof-of-principle classical experiments done 15-20 years ago in the field of regenerative medicine to the first man on the moon. we sent the first man to the moon over 40 years ago - how come we're not living in space now? as were these classical experiments, that was a huge leap in progress that requires many many decades of incremental work to catch up to it (in case you're curious he was referring to the iconic ear made from a biological scaffold and seeded cells on the back of a nude mouse circa mid 1990's).

i agree there are lots of great research done on mechanisms but mechanistic insight is a completely different issue than application of knowledge, and that's kind of the bottleneck in the science and technology right now. too many things that have been established in-vitro are a new and very different black box when placed in the context of a multi-organ system. an even greater box of problems explode when we factor in an intact immune system.

it's a field with lots of promise, but at the moment there is still a very large disconnect between the science being done and clinical application.

I was in the field during undergrad and graduate school, so there's probably a bit of rose colored glasses bias in my hindsight.

You're right, though. There is a big disconnect in the clinical translation. The shriveled up and half dead researcher in me still finds those mechanisms to be significant advances though in terms of current clinical use they're...useless heh.

 

[dr zaius]

When was the last time any of you when to the doctor for something that could have been cured with an organ transplant more effectively than current treatments?

Probably never by anyone in this thread. Try asking in a forum for those on the organ transplant lists.

 

[AFMD]

Probably never by anyone in this thread. Try asking in a forum for those on the organ transplant lists.

Sure, I just don't see how artificially grown organs will make medicine obsolete. Except procuring organs I guess.

 

[deleted393595]

... more like the next 200 years. I think you vastly overestimate the current state of the research and how extraordinarily complex something like this is.

Corollary of Clarke's First Law says otherwise. It's going to be 10-15 years to reach commercialization levels and another few to get approval.

 

[dr zaius]

Sure, I just don't see how artificially grown organs will make medicine obsolete. Except procuring organs I guess.

Oh! Yes, I absolutely agree with you there.

 

[CaptainSSO]

When was the last time any of you when to the doctor for something that could have been cured with an organ transplant more effectively than current treatments?

Once the technology and practicality of this are in full force, how is it NOT going to be more effective? That's like saying, "When was the last time buying a new car was more effective than taking your Camry with 200,000 miles on it to the mechanic?"

Example, someone with CHF--if we have the means, are we going to give them a new heart or just keep giving them digitalis?

Keep someone on dialysis or give them a new kidney?

A normal functioning organ is always going to be more effective than maintaining a diseased organ with treatment.

 

[link2swim06]

Once the technology and practicality of this are in full force, how is it NOT going to be more effective? That's like saying, "When was the last time buying a new car was more effective than taking your Camry with 200,000 miles on it to the mechanic?"

Example, someone with CHF--if we have the means, are we going to give them a new heart or just keep giving them digitalis?

Keep someone on dialysis or give them a new kidney?

A normal functioning organ is always going to be more effective than maintaining a diseased organ with treatment.

one word, cost.

 

[CaptainSSO]

one word, cost.

As the technology advances, price will eventually drop as we find cheaper, more efficient methodologies to grow and transplant the organs.

You're going to tell me that lifelong dialysis is cheaper than a kidney transplant? Dialysis is insanely expensive. Just perusing the Intranets, people are saying it's several thousand per treatment.

 

[link2swim06]

As the technology advances, price will eventually drop as we find cheaper, more efficient methodologies to grow and transplant the organs.

You're going to tell me that lifelong dialysis is cheaper than a kidney transplant? Dialysis is insanely expensive. Just perusing the Intranets, people are saying it's several thousand per treatment.

Not necessarily dialysis...but lets take a-fib...is it really worth it to spend 100K on a heart transplant when we can just give them some cheap heart meds?

There are a ton of diseases which can be managed without a huge lifestyle change for the pt via medication. Remember regardless of how cheap it is to "grow" the organ, you still are going to be paying a few surgeons and a hospital alot of money to do the operation.

Go through every organ system and think about how many non-surgical treatments we have...in most of these while replacement is possible, the current treatment is likely wayy cheaper.

I am not saying that growing organs will not solve many disease...it will....what I am saying is there is no way US healthcare will turn into your car repair shop (as a poster above me alluded)...that is crazy...if that was the case everyone over 70s would literally have spent 100s of thousands on healthcare.

Regardless if the organ is lab grow or harvested, during our lifetime it will never become a "cure all" bc cost alone.

 

[CaptainSSO]

^I agree with you, probably not during our lifetime (but I hope it does).

However, at some point in the future, I believe it will. It could even become an out-patient procedure. I mean, in the 1940s a computer took up an entire room, and now I'm typing this post from a cell phone smaller than a deck of cards.

 

[shannondouvier]

this would likely be an expensive and highly invasive option

 

[nguyen duc huy]

It must certainly take very long time to make your concerns come true especially with the current evolution speed of medicine and biological technology. Until now, what humankind has conducted successfully are only original-cell development in labs and the transplantation of several tissues with incredibly-high prices. Do you find it so easy to popularize these sorts of treatment while they are much more complex and expensive than taking some pills? In my opinion, humans can solely do it over one century later (after we die ). So that there is no evidence of unemployment for doctors within at least several decades.

 

[AFMD]

Once the technology and practicality of this are in full force, how is it NOT going to be more effective? That's like saying, "When was the last time buying a new car was more effective than taking your Camry with 200,000 miles on it to the mechanic?"

Example, someone with CHF--if we have the means, are we going to give them a new heart or just keep giving them digitalis?

Keep someone on dialysis or give them a new kidney?

A normal functioning organ is always going to be more effective than maintaining a diseased organ with treatment.

You don't have to cut someone open to put a new car inside of them.

 

[dienekes88]

Once the technology and practicality of this are in full force, how is it NOT going to be more effective? That's like saying, "When was the last time buying a new car was more effective than taking your Camry with 200,000 miles on it to the mechanic?"

Example, someone with CHF--if we have the means, are we going to give them a new heart or just keep giving them digitalis?

I see what you're saying, but there's a teaching point here. Digitalis has no survival benefit for CHF. Beta blockers, ACE-I, and -for a subset of patients with systolic dysfunction - spironolactone or eplerenone have proven survival benefits. Dig is good for symptomatic improvement in patients who are otherwise medically optimized and as a second-agent (in addition to beta-blockers) in patients with symptomatic CHF and AFib.

Not necessarily dialysis...but lets take a-fib...is it really worth it to spend 100K on a heart transplant when we can just give them some cheap heart meds?

There are a ton of diseases which can be managed without a huge lifestyle change for the pt via medication. Remember regardless of how cheap it is to "grow" the organ, you still are going to be paying a few surgeons and a hospital alot of money to do the operation.

Go through every organ system and think about how many non-surgical treatments we have...in most of these while replacement is possible, the current treatment is likely wayy cheaper.

I am not saying that growing organs will not solve many disease...it will....what I am saying is there is no way US healthcare will turn into your car repair shop (as a poster above me alluded)...that is crazy...if that was the case everyone over 70s would literally have spent 100s of thousands on healthcare.

Wait. They don't already?

Regardless if the organ is lab grow or harvested, during our lifetime it will never become a "cure all" bc cost alone.

Mechanical replacement.

Cheap ECMO. Cheap/small VADs. Portable dialysis. Joints with motors and neuromuscular connections to improve mobility. Hello, T-800.

 

[link2swim06]

I see what you're saying, but there's a teaching point here. Digitalis has no survival benefit for CHF. Beta blockers, ACE-I, and -for a subset of patients with systolic dysfunction - spironolactone or eplerenone have proven survival benefits. Dig is good for symptomatic improvement in patients who are otherwise medically optimized and as a second-agent (in addition to beta-blockers) in patients with symptomatic CHF and AFib.



Wait. They don't already?



Mechanical replacement.

Cheap ECMO. Cheap/small VADs. Portable dialysis. Joints with motors and neuromuscular connections to improve mobility. Hello, T-800.

But its not the hardware cost that will become the problem...its the labor installing it. Heart surgery will never be "cheap", it is a very technical procedure today and will be in 2100. Until robots can do surgery or our body is filled with nanobots, cost organ replacement as being one of the first options.