Posted on 06/05/2018 7:00:01 PM PDT by 2ndDivisionVet
Clinical trials are tentatively scheduled for 2020 at Cincinnati Children's Hospital Medical Center's new Center for Stem Cell and Organoid Medicine, where researchers are making miniature livers and pancreases, called organoids.
Associate Director Takanori Takebe, MD, calls organoids a "complex recipe" of proteins, small molecules, amino acids and nutrients that enable him and his staff in the U.S. and Japan to make the organs using pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs), or so-called "master cells."
Takebe sees two roles for the manmade organs: drug testing and transplantation.
"It's pretty much like science fiction, but we are trying to create the miniature version of human organs in the culture dish," he says. "We can expose some drugs in a dish and see how it reacts in a patient's specific condition to tell how humans respond to drugs."
When it comes to transplantation, Takebe says doctors will have to "carefully select a very specific population" because the cost is high. Takebe says making and transplanting a liver or pancreas will cost $2 million.
Cincinnati Children's is seen as a leader in the development of liver and pancreatic organoids. The journal iScience reported May 31 Dr. Takebe used RFID chips to track the organoids, suggesting "it could be a useful way to organize and identify the large quantities of organoids that are often needed in experimental situations."
Eventually, manmade human organs could come down to a combination of biology and engineering. Researchers at the University of Illinois have created a 3D printer reportedly capable of producing complex shapes from sugar that could be used to grow biological tissues.
With new scaffolding and cell PRINTING tech this is going to take off HUGELY.
We’re in JUUUST the beginning.
I used to work for a company involved in this in Mountain View.
You’re from the Bay Area? For, off with thee!
...how long until one has to worry about cGMP, and if the tissues are made/sourced in America? See also “the fly.”
Prices will come down eventually. I can see some day when you place an online order and ship a sample of your saliva.. and a new heart, lung, kidney, liver or testicle is shipped to your doctor.
If they can grow spines I suggest a group discount be given to the republicans in first the Senate, followed by congress.
I used to grow tiny human lungs for research. They would not have been useful for any kind of transplant... but it was still cool.
Let’s forward this info to Mitch McConnell’s office ASAP.
Good news for “Little People”.
Pancreases? Do they do transplants of these?
I guess they never heard of the Tower of Babel?
It sure would be nice to get my adrenaline glands back.
The value to the nation would be incalculable.
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