Imagine creating a mouse's heart by printing it out on an ink-jet printer. Using a spray to regenerate skin cells on burn victims. Growing a bladder in a petri dish. Or what about a special powder that could regrow an amputated finger, or even an arm or leg? This incredible medical technology may sound like the sort of thing you'd see on one of Zach Braff's Scrubs fantasies, but to our surprise, these cutting-edge procedures are completely real – CBS says so.
Imagine creating a mouse's heart by printing it out on an ink-jet printer. Using a spray to regenerate skin cells on burn victims. Growing a bladder in a petri dish. Or what about a special powder that could regrow an amputated finger, or even an arm or leg?
This incredible medical technology may sound like the sort of thing you'd see on one of Zach Braff's Scrubs fantasies, but to our surprise, these cutting-edge procedures are completely real – CBS says so.
Three years ago, when Lee Sievack accidentally sliced off the tip of his finger on the propeller of a model plane, his brother, a medical researcher, gave him a special powder to sprinkle on the injured finger. To his astonishment, the entire finger grew back within four weeks.
The seemingly-magic powder is a combination of protein and connective tissue from pigs' bladders, known as extracellular matrix. And many researchers in the field of regenerative medicine believe that it could be the key to learning to regrow limbs, or even to produce entirely new organs.
Dr. Steven Badylak of University of Pittsburgh's McGowan Institute of Regenerative Medicine told CBS how the extracellular matrix worked: "Somehow the matrix summons the cells and tell them what to do. It helps instruct them in terms of where they need to go, how they need to differentiate - should I become a blood vessel, a nerve, a muscle cell or whatever."
A researcher at Wake Forest University, Dr. Anthony Atala, is studying the science behind growing new organs using cells in a laboratory and an ink-jet printer, and has already managed to build 18 types of tissue, including a sheep heart valve, from the cellular level. "When people ask me 'what do you do,' we grow tissues and organs," he said. "We are making body parts that we can implant right back into patients."
Atala believes it won't be long before researchers are capable of growing organs like human hearts in laboratories from a patient's own cells, getting rid of the need for organ donors. Through the injection of stem cells, patients may also be able to heal damaged organs internally, reducing the need for open-heart surgery and other invasive procedures. And, as Sievack has already seen, the new technology holds incredible potential for regrowing body parts, creating new cells to replace the damaged or missing ones.
Sounds like science fiction might have to come up with some new ideas – these days, you'll find it all inside a lab.
