Stem Cells Used To Grow Miniature Human Livers In Mice 59
ananyo writes "Transplanting tiny 'liver buds' constructed from human stem cells restores liver function in mice, researchers have found. Although preliminary, the results offer a potential path towards developing treatments for the thousands of patients awaiting liver transplants every year. The liver buds, approximately 4 mm across, staved off death in mice with liver failure, the researchers report this week in Nature (abstract.). The transplanted structures also took on a range of liver functions — secreting liver-specific proteins and producing human-specific metabolites. But perhaps most notably, these buds quickly hooked up with nearby blood vessels and continued to grow after transplantation."
Re:Not that I would try it (Score:5, Interesting)
Well... You eat your own cells all the time, and in practice you probably get a serving of other peoples' sloughed-off cells with every meal you have. I guess it's really more a matter of intent: If you're not getting the stuff from a human body (or arrange for the human to become "body" in the first place) then you may well decide this is not really cannibalism no matter what DNA the cells happen to contain. It comes from a mouse, so it's basically a mouse liver.
Why you'd want to eat mouse livers is another question of course, though chicken liver is delicious, so why not?
Re:By the way: With Obamacare... (Score:4, Interesting)
What a load of bullshit.
I AM from Germany, we DO have a "socialized" system, and the solution to your bullshit scenario IS *regulation*.
So eat your heart out, you bumbling idiot!
Our government simply told the all statutory health insurance fund (is that the right term?) companies:
"This is how much money you can get. Period."
So to maximize profits, they *had* to drive down costs. And they did. It was so effective that we now also have to add regulation to prevent healthcare workers / doctors to earn too *little*.
And every big company has its own insurer / fund, which has no interests in profits, but in keeping the employees healthy and well. So they offer a load of non-required services like sports programs and other preventative things, but even pseudo-scientific things like acupuncture. Hell, I even get 200€ a year to waste on whatever shit I please. (I chose to replace the old dental fillings with a more modern material. Yes, 200â is enough for at least four such procedures!)
Now what, idiot?