Posted on 04/14/2006 8:51:17 AM PDT by Neville72
SITTING in a culture dish, a layer of chicken heart cells beats in synchrony. But this muscle layer was not sliced from an intact heart, nor even grown laboriously in the lab. Instead, it was "printed", using a technology that could be the future of tissue engineering.
Gabor Forgacs, a biophysicist at the University of Missouri in Columbia, described his "bioprinting" technique last week at the Experimental Biology 2006 meeting in San Francisco. It relies on droplets of "bioink", clumps of cells a few hundred micrometres in diameter, which Forgacs has found behave just like a liquid.
This means that droplets placed next to one another will flow together and fuse, forming layers, rings or other shapes, depending on how they were deposited. To print 3D structures, Forgacs and his colleagues alternate layers of supporting gel, dubbed "biopaper", with the bioink droplets. To build tubes that could serve as blood vessels, for instance, they lay down successive rings containing muscle and endothelial cells, which line our arteries and veins. "We can print any desired structure, in principle," Forgacs told the meeting.
Other tissue engineers have tried printing 3D structures, using modified ink-jet printers which spray cells suspended in liquid (New Scientist, 25 January 2003, p 16). Now Forgacs and a company called Sciperio have developed a device with printing heads that extrude clumps of cells mechanically so that they emerge one by one from a micropipette. This results in a higher density of cells in the final printed structure, meaning that an authentic tissue structure can be created faster.
Cells seem to survive the printing process well. When layers of chicken heart cells were printed they quickly begin behaving as they would in a real organ. "After 19 hours or so, the whole structure starts to beat in a synchronous manner," says Forgacs.
Most tissue engineers trying to build 3D structures start with a scaffold of the desired shape, which they seed with cells and grow for weeks in the lab. This is how Anthony Atala of Wake Forest University in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, and his colleagues grew the bladders which he successfully implanted into seven people (New Scientist, 8 April 2006, p 10). But if tissue engineering goes mainstream, faster and cheaper methods will be a boon. "Bioprinting is the way to go," says Vladimir Mironov, a tissue engineer at the Medical University of South Carolina in Charleston.
If you print up parts of an octopus, you could have your papoer make it's own ink....
Or, um, "enhancement" operations. Why bother with implants when you can build parts "bigger and better" made of your own cells?
That's it in a nutshell. If you can't prevent or treat dementia, the rest may be a Faustian bargain.
I bett that within a year the penis enlargement e mails will talk about the technique. a home kit will only be $200 and works with any computer.
That sounds like quite the unique company when their mission statement includes these two sentences.
"Simply put, advanced technology provides opportunities that were nonexistent a hundred, fifty, or even just five years ago. At Sciperio, we appreciate our position at the forefront of high-tech innovation, while at the same time we recognize God's hand in the development of technology. We respect life at all levels and seek to promote technology for the betterment of humankind."
Impressive.
Actually, I would think (I do NOT know) that the brain does the same as the rest of the body's organs in deterioration....depending upon how they are treated...i.e. nutrition, vitamins, oils, antioxidants, free radicals, drugs, etc....in other words, if you can help your organs stay healthier longer, you can help your brain stay healthier longer (that's my story and I'm sticking to it!)
great idea!
"All I have to do is hold on for another 10-20 years and I can begin replacing worn out stuff. Simply amazing."
They'll be accepting down payments soon. You can start making down payments on the the artificial organ (that won't even exist yet) and they'll send you bimonthly updates on the research.
This was also news on physorg.com weeks ago. I remember they provided a movie clip of the news.
"Or, an easier task, print out a juicy, perfectly roasted rare prime rib."
I don't know about the roasted part, but they will definitely be growing flesh pretty soon for the purpose of being eaten---without bothering with the whole animal---most of which is a "waste" from our point of view.
"Of course the printer is cheap... it's the ink that gets your $$$ in the end... LOL "
good one.
"The evidence I have read about indicates that the brain continues to develop new synapses, or rededicates areas of the brain to new functions, even after youth. The older mind can be remarkably resilient if it is healthy."
I read it too---pretty recent.
Deterioration aside, you'll eventually run into capacity issues. The brain forms new memories and learns by establishing new neural connections. While we don't know exactly what the brains capacity IS, there has been some research indicating that it wouldn't hold more than a couple hundred years worth of memories.
What happens when the brain fills up? I'm sure science will figure out a way to reset connections and free up space by then, but which memories will you be willing to lose forever? Theoretically, someone could end up living to be 500 or more and have no recollection of their childhood or college years.
Skipping any comments that I could make about not remembering those college years...
I read a science fiction story a long, long time ago that addressed this very problem. There were some very long-lived people in this story who couldn't even remember wives from past marriages. If it all happened 200-300 years in the past, I can imagine the memories would grow fuzzy over time.
I agree totally. I work at a big, famous biotech, and there it is fashionable to banish God. But the more I work, the more amazing order I see, and the more stark is the point that SOMEONE came up with all this. And far from diminishing my faith, it makes me think about God and feel his presence more than ever.
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