Keyword: transplantation
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The first is three-dimensional (3D) bioprinting, which uses “bio-ink,” a printable material made from a patient’s own cells, to print layer upon layer, creating tissue that will not be rejected by the recipient. But in progressing from tissue to a complex organ, one critical challenge has been how to get blood to flow to keep the cells alive, and researchers have devised a number of approaches to this. They include threading tiny channels through the organ, where blood vessels develop when implanted in animals, or seeding channels with the endothelial cells that line the inside of blood vessels. A second...
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A group of US scientists have created the world’s smallest human liver which can survive for forty days and works like the real thing – using a 3D printer. The mini-livers, made by California-based medical research company Organvo, are just half a millimetre deep and four millimetres wide but can perform most of the functions that a real liver can. The printer builds up 20 layers of hepatocytes cells, which carry out liver functions, along with two major types of liver cell. It also adds cells from the lining of a blood vessel. This allows the liver cells to receive...
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...boy recovers completely Although a team of four physicians insisted that his son was “brain-dead” following the wreck, Thorpe’s father enlisted the help of a general practitioner and a neurologist, who demonstrated that his son still had brain wave activity. The doctors agreed to bring him out of the coma, and five weeks later Thorpe left the hospital, having almost completely recovered.
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The United States recently passed a tragic milestone. For the first time, there are more than 100,000 Americans waiting for an organ transplant. If recent history is any guide, more than 6,000 of them will die waiting this year. The outrage is that the federal government makes it extremely difficult to find a donor. A law to prevent the buying and selling of organs has had the unintended consequence of discouraging almost all incentives to donate, including state tax deductions. Arlen Specter (R., Pa.) is trying to convince his Senate colleagues to pass a life-saving rewrite. It wasn't supposed to...
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Alex Koehne had a love for life, and always wanted to help people. So when his parents were told that their 15-year-old son was dying of bacterial meningitis, the couple didn't hesitate in donating his organs to desperately ill transplant recipients. "I immediately said, `Let's do it'," Jim Koehne recalled. "We both thought it was a great idea. This is who Alex was." A year later, their dream that Alex's spirit might somehow live on has become a nightmare. It turned out that Alex did not die of bacterial meningitis, but rather a rare form of lymphoma that wasn't found...
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Canadian Press TORONTO — Scientists at Toronto's Hospital for Sick Children say they've taken a step forward in stem-cell transplant research. They've discovered a gene with properties that allow for successful transfer of stem cells from human bone marrow into mice. They also identified the type of cell that expresses the gene (called SIRPalpha) and is responsible for either destroying or supporting growth of human blood stem cells. The researchers hope further studies will lead to the development of a therapy so more children with blood diseases can receive bone marrow transplantation. It may also help provide a genetic test...
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April 03, 2007, 9:40 a.m. One Harsh PrescriptionA doctor vs. cyber humanitarianism. By Sally Satel On February 14, 2006, Paul Wagner gave Gail Tomas, a total stranger, his left kidney. Wagner, a 40-year-old Philadelphia purchasing manager, met Tomas, a 65-year-old former opera singer on the Internet — through a site called Matchingdonors.com, which pairs patients needing an organ with humanitarians who are willing to donate.  Beautiful stories like this will no longer come to be, however, if Dr. Douglas W. Hanto, has his way. Writing recently in The New England Journal of Medicine Dr. Hanto, a transplant surgeon and...
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Vol. 315. no. 5811, pp. 482 - 486 DOI: 10.1126/science.1133542 Genetically matched pluripotent embryonic stem (ES) cells generated via nuclear transfer or parthenogenesis (pES cells) are a potential source of histocompatible cells and tissues for transplantation. After parthenogenetic activation of murine oocytes and interruption of meiosis I or II, we isolated and genotyped pES cells and characterized those that carried the full complement of major histocompatibility complex (MHC) antigens of the oocyte donor. Differentiated tissues from these pES cells engrafted in immunocompetent MHC-matched mouse recipients, demonstrating that selected pES cells can serve as a source of histocompatible tissues for transplantation.
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Close window Published online: 8 November 2006; | doi:10.1038/news061106-10 Blind mice see after cell transplantStudy suggests newborn cells best for transfer.Helen Pearson A transplanted cell (green) connects up to the host retina (blue). MacLaren et al Using a technique that may one day help blind people to see, researchers have shown in mice that retinal cells from newborns transplanted into the eyes of blind adults wire up correctly and help them to detect light. The finding challenges conventional biological thinking, because it shows that cells that have stopped dividing are better for transplantation than the stem cells that normally...
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CLEVELAND: Five US men and seven women will secretly visit a medical clinic in Ohio in coming weeks to vie for the chance to have a radical operation that has never been tried anywhere in the world. They will smile, raise their eyebrows, close their eyes and open their mouths. The Cleveland Clinic's Maria Siemionow will study their cheekbones, lips and noses. She will ask what they hope to gain, and what they most fear. Then she will ask: "Are you afraid you will look like another person?" Because whoever she chooses will endure the ultimate identity crisis. Dr Siemionow...
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My oldest niece had a triple bypass within the last couple of days at Texas Heart Institute (Houston or St. Luke's Episcopal or whichever name you wish to use). It is now necessary that she await a donor heart and will undergo a heart transplant. When I heard this I was in shock, as I did not know that transplants were used anymore (excuse my ignorance). My entire family asks for the prayers of each of you for Judy. Her Dad, my brother Dan, entered eternity two years ago this last July 14th. We are reeling with the news of...
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Cord Blood Transplant OK for Adult LeukemiaStudies: Cord Blood Transplants Realistic Option for Adult Leukemia Treatment By Jennifer Warner WebMD Medical News Reviewed By Brunilda Nazario, MD on Wednesday, November 24, 2004 Nov. 24, 2004 -- Umbilical cord blood transplants may be a viable treatment option for adults with leukemia when a matching bone marrow donor isn't available, according to two major new studies. Umbilical cord blood transplants are already successful in treating children with leukemia, but until now the safety and effectiveness of the treatment in adults with leukemia has not been examined. A common treatment for adult leukemia...
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In what federal officials said was the first case of its kind, three people who received organ transplants in May from a single donor in Texas died from rabies in June. The donor was not suspected of having rabies at his death, which doctors attributed to a stroke, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said yesterday. It was not until this week, after a pathologist in Dallas who was puzzled about the deaths asked the federal agency for help, that the connection was made, Dr. Artun Srinivasan, a C.D.C. physician said in a telephone interview. Dr. Mitchell L. Cohen,...
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<p>LOS ANGELES — Last year alone 60 percent of the 82,000 Americans waiting for an organ died without ever receiving a transplant (search). Now a new private group wants to change these odds -- at least for its own members.</p>
<p>Dave Undis is on a crusade to change the way donated organs are dispensed.</p>
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