Doctors unveil first whole organ stem cell transplant in new dawn for medicine

[metalgearHMN]

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/a...cell-transplant-new-dawn-medical-science.html

Not exactly the most complex organ, and they kind of cheated with the whole "scaffolding" thing. It's a step in a wondrous direction nonetheless. Once the technology becomes more advanced, we may be the one's performing full lung and heart replacements

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[Chemist0157]

Hey, whatever works! That's pretty cool how they used the patient's own cells along with the windpipe of a donor.

 

[Quix]

I saw this on CNN. Right above the story on how a separate group of scientists used stem cells for breast augmentation. Which do you think will get the next NIH grant?

 

[JeetKuneDo]

This is prettty crazy.

 

[linguini]

That's awesome. I know that Harvard also used this scaffolding technique to "grow" a human bladder.

 

[AtheGre]

I read about that this morning. I think it's sooo amazing! It makes me want to specialize in transplant surgery.

 

[Made of Dreams]

in 2007 a heart valve was done. how exciting! imagine what medicine will be when we are "seasoned" physicians!....actually...imagine what medicine will be in a year...

 

[umean2tellme]

Amazing. No more immunosuppresive meds. I'd guess it would make the life of a transplant surgeon a lot less hectic.

 

[bobsagat]

Wow... so if we can replace someone's heart, lungs and kidneys in 20 years with their own tissue, the biggest aging problem becomes (or stays) brain-based. If the promises being offered by these docs are fulfilled, Alzheimer's research is going to get even more attention...

 

[JackInTheBox]

Wow... so if we can replace someone's heart, lungs and kidneys in 20 years with their own tissue, the biggest aging problem becomes (or stays) brain-based. If the promises being offered by these docs are fulfilled, Alzheimer's research is going to get even more attention...

This is a big breakthrough, but I think it'll be longer than 20 years before this technique is commonplace. Not to be a Debbie Downer, but the news media tend to gloss over the complexities of tissue engineering, and the scaffolding that they're using wasn't artificial. It's a huge leap to go from what's essentially a hollow tissue tube to complex, functional structures like the heart, lungs, or kidneys.

Whether or not solving other organ procurement problems leads to increased Alzheimer's research is debatable too. Right now, AD research is considered a financial black hole by most drug companies, and a cure is like the Higgs Boson of the medical world.

 

[189362]

I saw this too, it is pretty amazing how quickly the advancements in medicine progress. They showed the patient pushing her kids on a swing post-op. Apparently she needed no rejection drug therapy and was in the best possible condition of health. Now once science attempts to transplant "homegrown" hearts, lungs, and other organs (which honestly isnt too far away) then the s hit will hit the fan.

 

[BuffGold]

I'm gonna chime in for the skeptics here. . . tissue engineering has a LONG way to go until it is replacing organs with such intense functions like hears and lungs and kidneys and livers and any other vital organ.
There was a clinical trial with tissue engineered heart valves a couple years back (grew on an artificial collagen scaffold, if I remember right) that was canceled because all of the participants were dying. They went and removed it from the living patients and replaced it with the current gold standard porcine valve.

The windpipe is mainly structural, and they took the structure from an allograft. Filling in the holes with tissue to prevent air leaks at relatively low pressure is very different from growing an entire organ with complex function. I also wonder what happens when that tissue starts to be degraded by MMPs and the like. . . can it regenerate itself long term? I wouldn't want to be there the first time she gets a cough. . .

I do research in tissue engineering, and I hope it is the future as much as you all do, but I think there are some fatal flaws with the traditional scaffold seeded cell method, and that a new approach is needed. Maybe something like the Island. . .

 

[iduwanna]

That's awesome. I know that Harvard also used this scaffolding technique to "grow" a human bladder.

Wasn't that Wake Forest, not Harvard?

 

[JHopRevisit]

delete.