[Pyramid*]

This has always fascinated me - growing body parts in a lab.

I've always thought that in time, the human body will evolve to be able to naturally grow a lost limb etc: after all, it already can grow new bone, can repair tissue damage, nerve damage.

In the meantime however: we have this work going on -





Trachea - recently transplanted in 2011 into a patient.

Tissue grows into these and becomes part of it. It becomes the same as a nose and will even feel like one.’
When the nose is transferred to the patient, it doesn’t go directly onto the face but will be placed inside a balloon inserted beneath the skin on their arm.


After four weeks, during which time skin and blood vessels can grow, the nose can be monitored, then it can be transplanted to the face.


At the cutting edge of modern medicine, Seifalian and his team are focusing on growing replacement organs and body parts to order using a patient’s own cells. There would be no more waiting for donors or complex reconstruction – just a quick swap.


And because the organ is made from the patient’s own cells, the risk of rejection should, in theory, be eliminated

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/home/mosl...#ixzz1u5RJ0JdR


Are you in favour of this type of thing or does it freak you out?

[Saph]

This seems so advanced now but I bet by 2050 we'll be able to just order new body parts from a catalogue

[Niall]

I'm totally in favour of this. The amount of problems it can solve in the realm of organ donation amongst other things are huge (like tailor making limbs for people based on their genetic make up), and would probably stamp out the need for organ donors altogether. It's wonderful.

[Me. I Am Salman]

As long as it doesn't kill embryos I'm fine with it.

[Pyramid*]

Originally Posted by SaphLiike

This seems so advanced now but I bet by 2050 we'll be able to just order new body parts from a catalogue

It's odd you mention that.... when I was a teen or thereabouts, movies came out about this very type thing - but they were just 'fantasy/horror' type movies: and now it's happening.

That was only about 25/30 years ago and look how far they've come. 2050 is on 32 years away: so you just never know! It might not be that wild a thought afterall.

[Kizzy]

Lots of people think its playing god, but if saves a life...this should be in moral dilemmas

[Saph]

Originally Posted by Pyramid*

It's odd you mention that.... when I was a teen or thereabouts, movies came out about this very type thing - but they were just 'fantasy/horror' type movies: and now it's happening.

That was only about 25/30 years ago and look how far they've come. 2050 is on 32 years away: so you just never know! It might not be that wild a thought afterall.

I hope so I wish I was born in the future, like the year 2100 or something

[Pyramid*]

Originally Posted by Salman!

As long as it doesn't kill embryos I'm fine with it.

did you read the article? These ones I've posted and are referring to have nothing to do with embryos. There is reference later: but the ones I've posted are made from own patient cells or synthetic - It would have been more helpful if I had made that clearer in my opening post: it's not the ones involving embyros I meant.

At the cutting edge of modern medicine, Seifalian and his team are focusing on growing replacement organs and body parts to order using a patient’s own cells. There would be no more waiting for donors or complex reconstruction – just a quick swap.


And because the organ is made from the patient’s own cells, the risk of rejection should, in theory, be eliminated

.

[Pyramid*]

Originally Posted by kizzy

Lots of people think its playing god, but if saves a life...this should be in moral dilemmas

Nah... this is actually happening. It's not some made up story.

[Pyramid*]

Originally Posted by SaphLiike

I hope so I wish I was born in the future, like the year 2100 or something

I'd actually love to be around then too...... we seem to have a lull in new scientific breakthroughs then we get a load of them at the one time being tried out.

I mean, we are transplanting external body parts now and have been for years - there was a story ages ago about men who had hands transplanted; some took to them and some - it freaked them out.

I'll see if I can find the article.

[Pyramid*]

Double hand transplant
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-13437663

David Savage has lived most of his life with a hook in place of a right hand.
He was 19 when the hand he relied on to write his name, throw a ball and do hundreds of daily tasks was mangled in a metal-stamping machine, and doctors had to amputate. That was 37 years ago.
Then, almost two years ago, Savage became the third American to get a hand transplant from a cadaver donor. Today, the 56-year-old Michigan man says he wakes up every morning happy to realize that he has two hands again.

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/s...oryId=95593579

there was also a story about a man who couldn't accept (psychologically) his transplanted hand because it was so different to his own other hand - and requested it be amputated.....can't find the story at the mo.


all fascinating stuff all the same.

[Pyramid*]

Chris Hallam. Handtransplant that he had done in France - and had to go to London to have it removed.






Last year, Mr Hallam begged doctors to remove the hand, saying he felt "mentally detached" from it.
His request was turned down by the French doctor who co-led the surgical team on the grounds that the body was inviolable under French law.
At the time, Mr Hallam told a newspaper in London that he often kept the hand hidden because it is so unsightly. The transplanted hand was wider and longer than his own, the flesh a different colour and the skin flaky.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/1151553.stm





for someone who cannot mentally accept another human hand as transplant: these new advances would be an ideal solution. Much harder than ears or noses though.