his team are using 3-D printers to create tiny replicas of human organs, including miniature lungs and colons
Holy cow, I know we all wanted flying cars but in many ways this is even cooler and more useful! This kind of thing is indeed something that just screams "Here comes the future!".
but in many ways this is even cooler and more useful! This kind of thing is indeed something that just screams "Here comes the future!".
Yup, it's indeed *extremely useful*. It's been used a lot by some colleagues working on cancer research.
There's a lot of things that you can't study on simple cell culture in a petri dish, because there much more to it than just a loose collection of cells. A lot of disease and treatments depends on complex interaction between multiple different population of cells, and from their 3d organization and structure.
It used to be that moving to an animal model was the only way to study diseases and test treatments
the main driver behind organoids is drug and cancer research. they just need tiny bits that basically only have the feature and structure needed. i.e.: you don't need to grow a full human-sized lung, you only need to grow a couple of tiny alveolae and sourrinding blood vessels that have the feature you need for your simulations. (so small patches of skin are actually closer to be practical than giant organs)
- complexity:
organoids usually will feature the 1-2 characteristics you need to simulate what's needed for your test. you're more likely to grow a simple glomerule (one distinct renal functionnal unit) than a whole kidney. So organs that are mostly large masses of the same basic structure are a better bet: heart (basically big chunk of muscle cells and assorted blood vessel. Not even nerves, it only relies on specialized muscle cell to carry the timing signal around) and skin (a couple of distinct cell population is enough to produce a functional one).
I don't have the ref at hand, but synthetically grown skin graft is actually a thing (basically it boils down to adding the couple of feature that skin needs which isn't generated by skin cells but other progenitor cell, and which is the missing part in traditional skin regrow).
Now THIS is the future! (Score:5, Insightful)
his team are using 3-D printers to create tiny replicas of human organs, including miniature lungs and colons
Holy cow, I know we all wanted flying cars but in many ways this is even cooler and more useful! This kind of thing is indeed something that just screams "Here comes the future!".
Useful indeed (Score:5, Informative)
but in many ways this is even cooler and more useful! This kind of thing is indeed something that just screams "Here comes the future!".
Yup, it's indeed *extremely useful*. It's been used a lot by some colleagues working on cancer research.
There's a lot of things that you can't study on simple cell culture in a petri dish, because there much more to it than just a loose collection of cells.
A lot of disease and treatments depends on complex interaction between multiple different population of cells, and from their 3d organization and structure.
It used to be that moving to an animal model was the only way to study diseases and test treatments
Re: (Score:2)
Any idea how long until they can start printing full sized kidneys and hearts? (Or even toes? Or even patches of skin?)
Limiting factor (Score:2)
The limiting factors currently are:
- size:
the main driver behind organoids is drug and cancer research. they just need tiny bits that basically only have the feature and structure needed.
i.e.: you don't need to grow a full human-sized lung, you only need to grow a couple of tiny alveolae and sourrinding blood vessels that have the feature you need for your simulations.
(so small patches of skin are actually closer to be practical than giant organs)
- complexity:
organoids usually will feature the 1-2 characteristics you need to simulate what's needed for your test. you're more likely to grow a simple glomerule (one distinct renal functionnal unit) than a whole kidney.
So organs that are mostly large masses of the same basic structure are a better bet: heart (basically big chunk of muscle cells and assorted blood vessel. Not even nerves, it only relies on specialized muscle cell to carry the timing signal around) and skin (a couple of distinct cell population is enough to produce a functional one).
I don't have the ref at hand, but synthetically grown skin graft is actually a thing (basically it boils down to adding the couple of feature that skin needs which isn't generated by skin cells but other progenitor cell, and which is the missing part in traditional skin regrow).