Tissue Engineering
It may sound crazy, but it's already happening. Humans are currently walking around with artificial bladders, urethras, windpipes, and vaginas — all grown from their own cells in a laboratory - Susannah Locke
image by: Mogil
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Inside the sci-fi world of growing human tissue and organs in the lab
For decades, scientists and doctors have been seeking a way to manufacture human tissue — including entire organs — in a lab, hoping to make grafts and transplants easier and safer than they are now. The goal has proved elusive, because it’s hard to replicate the complexity of human tissue outside the body. But those in the trenches say the industry could be on the verge of a breakthrough.
Featured
Tissue Engineering: The Future is Here
Imagine if after a serious accident, your damaged facial bones could be replaced with tissue made by your own cells. Or if you could pop a pill that could reprogram your immune system to fight a chronic disease, freeing you from a lifetime of medications. While both prospects sound futuristic, scientists and engineers at Johns Hopkins and elsewhere are working toward these and other advances in tissue engineering.
Previously Featured
A Tissue Engineer Sows Cells and Grows Organs
A more immediate goal is to improve upon a multitude of smaller therapies: transplantable valves for ailing hearts, cell-and-gel preparations for crushed nerves, injections of skeletal muscle cells for urinary continence or new salivary gland tissue to rescue radiation patients from dry mouth.
An organ shortage is killing people. Are lab-grown organs the answer?
Advances in the basic biology of how these cells normally grow and develop in the body, combined with technological advances in materials and fabrication, have led to a boom in research within the past decade or so. And today, many top universities have labs dedicated to engineering tissues and organs.
Our artificial cornea breakthrough could lead to self-assembling organs
For every person in the world who receives a cornea transplant, there are 69 others who still need one. That leaves about 12.5m people with limited sight because there aren’t enough eye donors. But what if we could grow new corneas in the lab?
The Latest Advancement in Regenerative Medicine Is Lab-Grown Vaginas
Medical research continues to succeed in engineering organs. But that's not enough.
The promise of repairing bones and tendons with human-made materials
Biomaterial scaffolds for tissue engineering are similar to scaffolding used in construction: a temporary framework that supports the structure and provides a platform for the builders to climb and place materials in their appropriate location. Once the construction is complete, the scaffolding is removed and the newly built structure remains.
Vocal cords grown in the lab stretch, vibrate, and make sound in scientific first
For vocal cords, producing sound is no mean feat. They need to be flexible enough to vibrate, but tough enough to withstand smacking together over a hundred times per second. If our whole bodies were subjected to an equivalent force, we’d be ripped apart.
What is Tissue Engineering?
Tissue engineering is a set of techniques to produce tissue, primarily for repair or improvement of human body functions. There are also some additional spin-off applications, such as screening of pharmaceutics and artificial meat. Tissue-engineered constructs are different than medical implants, which are technical devices made from man-made materials, without living tissue parts.
Resources
Journal of Developmental Biology and Tissue Engineering
The Journal of Developmental Biology and Tissue Engineering (JDBTE) aims to showcase current applied and interesting peer-reviewed content on the processes involved in the evolution and development of multicellular organisms at the cellular, molecular and genetic stages and their application to cell/tissue regeneration for organ repair, replacement and maintenance.
Journal of Tissue Engineering
Journal of Tissue Engineering (JTE) is a peer-reviewed, open access journal which focuses on scientific research in the field of tissue engineering and its clinical application.
National Institute of Biomedical Imaging and Bioengineering
Tissue engineering evolved from the field of biomaterials development and refers to the practice of combining scaffolds, cells, and biologically active molecules into functional tissues. The goal of tissue engineering is to assemble functional constructs that restore, maintain, or improve damaged tissues or whole organs.
