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Rudimentary Liver Grown In a Dish
ananyo writes "Japanese scientists have coaxed stem cells into forming a 5-millimeter-long, three-dimensional tissue that the researchers labelled a liver bud — an early stage of liver development. The bud lacks bile ducts but has blood vessels, and when transplanted into a mouse, was able to metabolize some drugs that human livers metabolize but mouse livers normally cannot. The work is 'the first report demonstrating the creation of a human functional organ with vascular networks from pluripotent stem cells,' the team claims."
Perhaps with a side of fava beans?
Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
Burn in hell you cursed worshipers of Satan! This is solely the work of the Devil himself. This is evil at its darkest (until I need a liver transplant, at which time I will be more than happy to accept one).
Now I can start drinking again.
And now chronic drunks rejoice -- this bud's for you!
(-1: Post disagrees with my already-settled worldview) is not a valid mod option.
Is that the wurst you can do?
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Unfortunately, the bile ducts are an important part of what the liver does, i.e. produce bile, which we need to digest fats. Furthermore, bile is used to remove bilirubin, a was product of the liver tearing down red blood cells. An excess of bilirubin is what makes people with liver problems turn yellow. This does seem like a great step forward in growing organs however. The liver is one of the most complex organs in the body.
Now if they could just figure out how to grow onions. Yum! Liver and onions!
You can reduce the scarring by inhibiting the body's healing response, but that only gets you so far. You also have problems with aseptic loosening when it comes to joint replacements, due to bone reclamation by the body.
It's certainly not all figured out, but we are going to become more and more like hardware with replaceable parts as we age.
We're not all the USA. All other countries have socialised healthcare where this sort of thing will be "free" (paid for by national insurance contributions at a vastly lower cost than private US medical care).
The longer your population is productive, the more it benefits your economy. Reducing retirements caused by becoming sick or infirm reduces health and welfare costs and keeps your workforce healthy.
We're not all the USA. All other countries have socialised healthcare where this sort of thing will be "free"
Ha-ha. You think socialist healthcare will give old farts operations costing tens of thousands of dollars for free.
One of the main reasons why the NHS (for example) is cheaper than US healthcare is that it routinely refuses treatment for old farts. If I remember correctly, something like 50% of lifetime healthcare spending for the average American happens in the last couple of months of their life, when socialist healthcare would just let them die earlier.
Errr... yes?
In my own family alone, "old farts" that I know personally have had a heart transplant, an 18-hour spinal realignment, major heart surgery, a partial liver transplant... all for "free".
Of course, it's not "free" - we pay for it with national insurance contributions. The cost is vastly, vastly lower than what is spent in the US because we have a nationalised system. While there is waste and overhead, it is nowhere near what it is in the US. It's why we spend less than half our GDP per capita compared to the USA (8% vs 16%), yet have longer life expectancy and no crippling debts brought on by healthcare costs.
If you think that the NHS "routinely refuses treatment" for old farts then I suggest you stop getting your "facts" from Fox News and talk to people who *actually live here*.