Scientists grow bladder replacement in lab

[iansmith]

http://www.nature.com/news/2006/060403/full/060403-3.html

A team of scientists has grown human bladder sacs in the laboratory and successfully transplanted them into people.

It is the first time that a complicated internal organ, rather than a scrap of skin or other tissue, has been grown in the lab and placed into people. The researchers say that they are already working on growing tailor-made kidneys, livers or hearts that might bypass the shortage of donor organs and problems with organ rejection.

I never thought I would see organ produce this early in my lifetime. This is amazing.

 

[Ouabache]

definitely a fascinating addition to science! I heard this item discussed on http://www.sciencefriday.com/pages/2006/Apr/hour1_040706.html , though they did acknowledge a bladder is much simpler organ, compared to a kidney or heart. Still the implications of this technology point to a day when in vitro organ generation will be commonplace.