04-05-2006, 07:47 AM
MEAT,Apr 4 2006, 07:35 PM Wrote:I found this article to be particularly interesting: Link
Apparently, several bladders were "grown" using the patients own DNA and successfully implanted without the negative 'side-effects' associated with organ transplants (i.e. body rejection). The article claims science will soon allow us to grow any organ in the human body. This is really wonderful news! Hundreds, if not thousands of people in the US alone die while waiting for an organ transplant and now a method has been developed to ensure everyone can have one. I don't know about anyone else, but I find this avenue of science to be very exciting and look forward to whatâs to come.
[right][snapback]106212[/snapback][/right]
Well, don't be too positive now. These bladder were grown from healthy cells of the bladder of the person in question. The bladder is a very simple organ. It consists basicly of the same kind of cells in a ball shape. So they used a mould on which they dropped solution with these cells and waited untill the grew into a nice closed "shell".
When you want to "make" things like kidneys or livers (organ which "fail" much more often) it is not this simple. Those organs consist of many, many different kinds of cells, and are not hollow, but have a very complicated structure that needs to be obtained if it has to function properly.
Making kindneys or livers might for this reason (if at all) cost us another 50 years, at least.