Robots grow mini-organs from human stem cells

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An automated system that uses robots has been designed to rapidly produce human mini-organs derived from stem cells. Researchers at the University of Washington School of Medicine in Seattle developed the new system.

The advance promises to greatly expand the use of mini-organs in basic research and drug discovery, according to Benjamin Freedman, assistant professor of medicine, Division of Nephrology, at the UW School of Medicine, who led the research effort.

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Human heart can now be 3D printed using biological materials

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All 3D printed innovations have something in common: they are only producing inorganic, plastic-based material. What about organic materials, such as human organs? Wouldn’t it be great if new organs could be printed out and used in surgical operations to save people’s lives? (Video)

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3D printing and microrobots make headway on building tissue which will enable large printed organs

artificial blood cells

Artificial blood vessels.

3D bioprinting has made new headway recently in fabricating blood vessels.  Researchers at Brigham and Women’s Hospital have developed a method for 3D printing biological material using magnetically controlled robots.

 

 

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How Long Before I Can 3D Print a Replacement Body for Myself?

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Futurist Thomas Frey: A couple weeks ago I turned 60. I remember how old 60 was when I was a kid, and now I’m here.

As a person who spends a lot of time asking “what if” questions, constantly thinking about extreme possibilities, the notion of 3D printing a replacement body for myself became very intriguing.

I remember seeing science fiction movies where cloned bodies were grown over long periods of time, and more recent ones with accelerated cloning technology, but the 3D printing of replacement bodies is a faster option, just now coming into view.

Bioprinting is the process of using 3D printers to form human tissue. This process that has already been used to print replacement kidneys, bladders, livers, skin, bones, teeth, noses, and ears, as well as prosthetic arms and legs. This is a list that didn’t even exist 5 years ago, but is now growing on a regular basis.

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Scientists trying to build human hearts for organ transplants

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pd3TFB0wOI0[/youtube]

There has already been success by researchers in growing tracheas, bladders, and body parts like noses on scaffolds using stem cells. Why not try to develop something more complex, like a heart or lungs? Dr. Harald Ott is a surgeon and researcher at Boston’s Massachusetts General Hospital who has been working on this very question.

 

 

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Scientists grow kidney in the laboratory

Laboratory grown rat kidney.

Scientists in the the U.S. say the have “grown” a kidney in the laboratory and it has been transplanted into animals where it started to produce urine.  Similar techniques to make simple body parts have already been used in patients, but the kidney is one of the most complicated organs made so far.

 

 

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Scientists grow human organs in a lab

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Francisco Fernandez-Aviles reached into a stainless steel tray and lifted up a gray, rubbery mass the size of a fat fist. It was a human cadaver heart that had been bathed in industrial detergents until its original cells had been washed away and all that was left was what scientists call the scaffold.

 

 

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Scientists create 3D printed human embryonic stem cells for first time

Scientists have developed a 3-D printer that prints human embryonic stem cells.

What if you could take living cells, load them into a printer, and squirt out a 3D tissue that could develop into a kidney or a heart? Researchers are one step closer to that reality, now that they have developed the first printer for embryonic human stem cells.

 

 

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Genetically modified pigs could provide human organs by 2013

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GM pigs could provide human organs for transplant.

There is a persistent shortage of human organs and this has led experts to investigate methods of using pigs created with human genes, so that body parts grown in them can be harvested for use in patients without their immune systems rejecting them.  Organs grown in genetically modified pigs could be transplanted into humans in as little as two years’ time, scientists believe.

 

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