tissue engineering ON Nat Geo tonight!!

Evo

This should be a very interesting show. if you can get National Geogrpahic, you might want to tune in

Tonight 10EST/9CST

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eXO_ApjKPaI



Amazing tissue engineering slide show below.

http://channel.nationalgeographic.co...w#tab-Photos/0

╔(σ_σ)╝

Evo this is gross. Please lock :-).

waht

Wow that's amazing. That guy didn't even have any scarring after the treatment.

rootX

You meant 10 PM EST? It's on now. But there's also one on 1 AM EST (10 PM PST).

Evo

Sorry, 10EST.

Evo

Holy cow, did you see the guy that regrew his fingertip? Why isn't this stuff readily available?

Evo

Unbelievable, more people are interested in posting about pop singers that can't remember the national anthem than life saving medical breakthroughs

What is wrong with this world?

That young mother waiting for a heart transplant, why don't more people donate organs?

I am an organ donor. If I get too old and my organs can't be used for transplants, I hope they can be used for this kind of research.

But the response to this thread and other threads in medical sciences is a sad testimonial to the rampant lack of caring in society.

Only 30% of Americans are registered organ donors (drivers license, etc...) and many of these may not have suitable organs.

Mororvia

If it makes you feel better, I'm recording it

Evo

You're a good person.

berkeman

I'm only over the air DTV. Can I watch it someplace online?

rootX

Glad that there are still shows like this . I couldn't see all of it but it was amazing. Meanwhile, Discovery is playing some Gold Rush/American Chopper crap.

Each time we go and renew our health cards (Canada), they provide us a simple organ donation form to fill. It only takes like 15 seconds to select what you want to donate and hand them back the form while they make your health card. Everyone in my family has filled that form.

Evo

Nat Geo might put it online to be viewed, I hope so.

You're a good doggy.

Proton Soup

que? i thought about responding earlier, but i didn't want to come across as debbie downer. part of the reason this stuff isn't available is, for better or worse, FDA. you can't just go sprinkling pig bladder matrix on a bunch of folks because two people had a good result. takes years of clinical trials. because weird and unexpected things can happen. people have been injected with embryonic stem cells only to break out in tumors and die. plus, pig carry pathogens, which is another risk. maybe less risky if you need a heart valve and would die anyway, but most of us don't die from a missing limb. plus, that matrix material seems to have growth factors in it that may be denatured or otherwise destroyed with aggressive sterilization procedures. so, it will probably go back to trying to discover the fundamental science behind how it works. and then duplicate that in a synthetic, non-pig-derived product. and THAT will probably not only take a long time, but be more financially lucrative than just scraping a pig bladder and washing it.

edit: i think there may be both religious reasons for not donating, plus the fear that you may not get the most life-saving care with donation.

╔(σ_σ)╝

Whenever I have to fill the form to donate my organ I always check no. :-)

I am afraid that if I ever get into a situation where I am in a coma or unconscious the organ people might just harvest my organs before I die.

Does this make me a bad person ?

Kevin_Axion

No, I forgot to send my paper back saying I accept being an Organ Donor, at least you put the initiative in.

mheslep

I saw it last night; found it all impressive. I was aware of the regrown rat heart status some years ago. But that severed and completely regrown finger digit? The massive skin regrowth of the cop who suffered 2nd degree burns without scarring? Amazing. The MIT kid who came up with the capillary matrix formed from a cotton candy machine, where the sugar is dissolved away leaving vessel cavities. Yes! I had to keep checking that I had not drifted over to some crackpot or a sales channel. I'll wager Rham Emanuel was watching that regrown finger tip segment.


I have many questions. For instance, it makes sense, I suppose, that the new muscle cells in a re-qrown human adult sized heart need to be 'taught' to beat. But then I realized that a human fetus heart starts beating within a few weeks after conception. What 'teaches' those cells, if teaching is required at all? Mother's pulse?

Evo, maybe this thread belongs better in the the medical or bio forums under the topic of extra cellular matrix (ECM), the central technological idea from what I could tell. ECM on google scholar: 57,400 hits.
http://scholar.google.com/scholar?hl...=2008&as_vis=0

Nicodemus

It's really impressive to see that all put together, not just a string of seperate stories and studies. If we can make it long enough, humanity could have a bright future.