Healthcare Technology Featured Article

May 04, 2012

Scientific Breakthrough: Making Organs from Your Own Cells


Is there anything sadder than a sick child waiting for a compatible heart or kidney in order to live? Probably not. But scientists have been seeking different ways to get around the problem for some time, and what some have already accomplished in the field of bioengineering, will shock you.

Dr. Tim Nelson, at the Mayo Clinic in Minnesota, explained to reporter Bill Weir in a video documentary that, “as great as organ transplants are, they’re but a stepping stone to the next big thing.” The next big thing is a revolutionary stem cell treatment where lab technicians will take a biopsy from your own body, and “trick it” into acting like a different organ.

Bill Weir offered himself up as a guinea pig to test this experiment. Dr. Nelson took sample tissue (or a biopsy) taken from Weir’s bicep, then broke the tissue down into fibroblasts in a lab. Weir explains that fibroblasts are like the “glue or mortar” that is necessary to heal wounds. The fibroblasts are then turned into induced pluripotent stem cells. This process, Weir states, is like “erasing the hard drive” of whatever the cells were before, in this case, bicep tissue. Then this tissue grows into brain tissue, lung tissue, cardiac tissue, etc. Weir was taken to a lab, and as evidence to this medical feat, watched from under a microscope how a similar process turned cells into beating tissue, like that of a heart. What is even more incredible is that the tissue beats at the same rate as the donor’s heart.

Dr. Nelson informs Weir that what he was witnessing is tissue taken from somebody’s bicep, just like with him, and “tricked” into thinking it’s tissue from a heart. However, we won’t know if the conclusion of this experiment was a success, until five months from now. Dr. Nelson predicts that there’s an 80 percent chance he will be among the first people to witness his own tissue beating outside of his body.

What this means in the grand scheme, is that say Weir has a heart attack years from now instead of transplanting an organ or tissue from an outside source, doctors can instead inject his very own tissue into his heart.

In similar studies, Dr. Gabor Forgacs, from the University of Missouri, is developing similar breakthrough technology. In Dr. Forgacs’s experiments, he is working on a “printing system”. With bioprinting, cells are reconstructed, as they do in nature, to build these 3D replicas of human organs. After cells are extracted, they transform into what Dr. Forgacs describes as “bioink.” A printer moves the cells into whatever shape resembles the desired organ. But this is not like any printer you’ve ever seen. This printer can assemble solid objects. The desired outcome for this project is similar to Nelson’s. Although Dr. Forgacs advises people to not drink heavily or smoke, perhaps there will be hope in the future for people who do and find themselves in need of a new liver or new lung. The beautiful part about both of these transplant methods is that they use your very own tissue to create your very own organs. These experiments signify that what may have been perceived as science fiction in the past is actually very close to being real.




Edited by Brooke Neuman
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