Dean of Invention: Re-Gen Revolution
Originaly posted on: 28 April 2012
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Dean of Invention: Growing New Organs Inside the Body (Series 1 Episode 8)
A doctor at the University of Pittsburgh finds a way to regenerate the liver inside the body cavity, an unprecedented feat!
Unfortunately, the video above finished a bit too early. In the report which was on Discovery Science broadcast on 15 April 2012 in Asia, it went on to show that the liver cells deposited themselves in the lymph nodes where they started to grow into mini livers in the mice, and taking on liver function capabilities. Hence the potential of growing new organs inside the body.
This programme was first shown in the UK in late 2010 and has probably been shown in many parts of the world. Catch it if you get an opportunity when shown or repeated.
Update on 3 June 2011: The programme is to be shown again on Sunday 10th June 2012 at 2200 hours on Astro Discovery Science Channel (554 in Malaysia).
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Updated on 11th June 2012:
3 medical institutions were highlighted on the programme:
a) Wake Forest Institute for Re-Generative Medicine
Surgeon Anthony Atala talked about using own body cells for growing body parts outside the body. Cells are coated onto a 'scaffold' in layers to form the organ. Organs grown included the bladder, heart valve, ear and skin.
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia:
Wake Forest Institute for Regenerative Medicine is a research institute affiliated with the Wake Forest School of Medicine and located at Winston-Salem, North Carolina, United States. Regenerative medicine is "a practice that aims to refurbish diseased or damaged tissue using the body's own healthy cells."[1] The institute opened its doors in May 2006 in an urban research downtown park in a 189,000-square-foot (17,600 m2) research building. The facility is part of the Piedmont Triad Research Park.[2][3]
Anthony Atala, M.D., is the Director of the Institute. He and many of his team came to North Carolina from the Laboratory for Tissue Engineering and Cellular Therapeutics at the Children's Hospital Boston and Harvard Medical School. Notable achievements announced at Wake Forest Institute have been the first lab-grown organ, a bladder, the artificial urinary bladder to be implanted into a human.[4][5] and stem cells harvested from the amniotic fluid of pregnant women. These stems cells are pluripotent, meaning they can be manipulated to differentiate into various types of mature cells that make up nerve, muscle, bone, and other tissues while avoiding the problems of tumor formation and ethical concerns that are associated with embryonic stem cells.[6]
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wake_Forest_Institute_for_Regenerative_Medicine
The following links were found on the web regarding the above institute:
Talks
Anthony Atala: Printing a human kidney
TED2011 Filmed and Posted Mar 2011
601,012 Views
Surgeon Anthony Atala demonstrates an early-stage experiment that could someday solve the organ-donor problem: a 3D printer that uses living cells to output a transplantable kidney. Using similar technology, Dr. Atala's young patient Luke Massella received an engineered bladder 10 years ago; we meet him onstage.
Talks | TED Partner Series
Anthony Atala on growing new organs
TEDMED2009 Filmed Oct 2009 Posted Jan 2010702,778 Views
Anthony Atala's state-of-the-art lab grows human organs -- from muscles to blood vessels to bladders, and more. At TEDMED, he shows footage of his bio-engineers working with some of its sci-fi gizmos, including an oven-like bioreactor (preheat to 98.6 F) and a machine that "prints" human tissue.
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b) Weill Cornell Medical College, New York
The programme showed how blood and oxygen were introduced into the capillaries of the body parts using the cotton candy concept, mentioned in the above video.
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c) McGowan Institute for Re-Generative Medicine, University of Pittsburgh
Eric Lagasse was interviewed in the programme about his research on finding a way to regenerate the liver inside the body cavity.
The liver cells injected into the abdominal cavity of mice settled in the lymph nodes. The lymph nodes are incubator sites for producing immune system cells. One in ten lymph nodes produced more liver cells which took over carrying out the liver functions.
Eric Lagasse bio link:
http://www.mirm.pitt.edu/people/bios/lagasse.asp
Eric Lagasse Laboratory link:
http://www.mirm.pitt.edu/lagasse/default.asp
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