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."

Comments

Burn in Hell!

[Anonymous Coward]

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).

Re:Burn in Hell!

[Baloroth]

I know you are making a joke, but these stems cells were iPS (induced pluripotent), i.e. taken from adults, not embryos, and therefore not controversial by any stretch of the imagination or in any viewpoint I'm aware of. On the contrary, they show that you don't need embryonic stem cells to produce medical advances.

Re:Burn in Hell!

[Dishevel]

What God wants and does not want are things that can be up for discussion.
If God does in fact exist though I can most assuredly tell you that nothing can interfere with his will.
If something human can interfere with Gods will it would not be much of a God.

Re:Burn in Hell!

[SomePgmr]

As a distantly former, semi-active "turbo-religious type" (Baptist), from a major metropolitan area that's not in Alabama, I'll second his observations.

There was nothing terribly rare (and certainly not insignificant) about viewing cutting-edge medical science as a meddling denial of God's will. The talking points would probably be a bit more... flowery... and go something along the lines of them being, "desperate attempts to cheat your mortality, to foolishly tell ourselves that we're our own masters, to deny our place as God's children, and that only Jesus' sacrifice can truly save us from suffering." You'd have to talk to a professional preacher to get the exact form of wackiness... I'm a little rusty.

So in this case, if I revisited my old religious groups today I wouldn't be at-all surprised if growing new organs for transplant, however they're presently derived, is considered the fruit of an evil science pioneered in infanticide.

We need to be honest about the underlying issue here... there's no real regard for reason in an institution that depends entirely on a lack thereof. Pretending otherwise (when you're out in public, anyway) is little more than a PR strategy.

Re:Burn in Hell!

[Hatta]

The problem was that if a discovery was made with them, there would be an incentive to create embryo "farms" to produce more.

So, prohibit the non-incidental production of embryonic stem cells. Banning the research is nothing more than deliberate ignorance.

It's similar to how most people have no problem performing an autopsy, but will get somewhat annoyed if you start creating dead bodies to do so

Which is why we have laws prohibiting people from doing anatomy on cadavers. Oh wait, we don't.

Jackpot

[Anonymous Coward]

Now I can start drinking again.

Re:Jackpot

[Grayhand]

Now I can start drinking again.

"Japanese scientists have coaxed stem cells into forming a 5-millimeter-long, three-dimensional tissue that the researchers labelled a liver bud "

Very small drinks.

Re:Jackpot

[CubicleZombie]

Coors light.

W.C. Fields

[Impy the Impiuos Imp]

And now chronic drunks rejoice -- this bud's for you!

Need bile ducts!

[b_dover]

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.

Re:Need bile ducts!

[Beardo the Bearded]

No problem, there's enough bile on /. to share with everyone. That's not even getting into the great bile reserves on fark, reddit, or even usenet.

Re:I'll drink to that!

[jo_ham]

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*.