Printing Replacement Body Parts

Deep Penguin sends in a piece that appeared in The Economist a couple of weeks back about a developing technology to "print" body parts for transplant. "A US and an Australian company have developed the $200,000 machine, which works by depositing stem cells and a 'sugar-based hydrogel' scaffolding material. (The stem cells are harvested from a transplant patient's own fat and bone marrow, to avoid rejection down the line.) The companies are Organovo, from San Diego, specializing in regenerative medicine, and Invetech, an engineering and automation firm in Melbourne, Australia. The initial targets are skin, muscle, and 'short stretches of blood vessels,' which they hope to have available for human implantation within five years. Down the line, they expect the technology could even print directly into the body, bypassing the in-vitro portion of the current process."

Comments

Re:Count-down

[mcgrew]

And why stop at changing genitalia? or even general enhancement of your existing body, imagine what such technology could do for transsexuals, step into the machine a man and come out a woman.

There is no such thing as a sex change. You can reshape flesh to construct a penis for a woman, remove her breasts and inject hormones to give her facial hair, but she will still have two X chromosomes and no Y chromosome. Similarly, a man who has a "sex change operation" still has a Y chromosome. It's going to be a while before we're technologically advanced enough for a true sex change.

Yes, there are XXY and XXX and YYY (etc) individuals, individuals born with both penis and vagina, etc but these are incredibly rare and are the exception. If you are a normal non-mutant human you can change your appearance to look like the opposite sex, but you will not become the opposite sex. This surgery can be beneficial to some, but it isn't a true sex change.