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Stem Cells Used To Grow Miniature Human Livers In Mice
ananyo writes "Transplanting tiny 'liver buds' constructed from human stem cells restores liver function in mice, researchers have found. Although preliminary, the results offer a potential path towards developing treatments for the thousands of patients awaiting liver transplants every year. The liver buds, approximately 4 mm across, staved off death in mice with liver failure, the researchers report this week in Nature (abstract.). The transplanted structures also took on a range of liver functions — secreting liver-specific proteins and producing human-specific metabolites. But perhaps most notably, these buds quickly hooked up with nearby blood vessels and continued to grow after transplantation."
Welcome our new mice overlords
Welcome our new mice overlords
Can't wait for the human neural stem cells to be transplanted into mice.
You read everything as marijuana for somebody, don't you?
but would it be cannibalism to eat them?
I guess it's 4th of July, but first time I read is as "Stem Cells Used To Grow Miniature Human Live In Mice".
As usual, any kind of clinical use of this stem cell stuff is "ten years away". These guys are as bad as fusion researchers.
"USED TO"??
So, what are they doing now?
http://www.geoffreylandis.com
They just posted this a few months ago.
Agent Smith-Oracle: Wait ... I've seen this. This is it, this is the liver bud one. Yes, you were laying right there, like that, I ... I ... I stand here, right here, the OP says something about drinking college students...I'm supposed to say something. I say ... 'This Bud's for you!'
What ? What did I just say ? No... No, this isn't right, this can't be right. Get away from me!
(-1: Post disagrees with my already-settled worldview) is not a valid mod option.
Bring forth the Fava Beans and Chiante!
But Mrs. Garrison needs to know, can they be used to grow penises?
Monstar L
As usual, any kind of clinical use of this stem cell stuff is "ten years away". These guys are as bad as fusion researchers.
I'm sure they'd love to try it in a human dying of liver disease. But between the FDA regs, the self-appointed Medical Ethics czars, and the malpractice ambulance-chasers there's a lot of hurdles to jump before they MIGHT be allowed to try it (let alone deploy it as a regular procedure).
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
There's a BBC show about that: Rastamouse. I'm not even joking!
http://www.rastamouse.com/
By the way, with Obamacare (or any other single-government-payer system)
Bahahahaha! Obamacare? Single payer? Please. That program is nothing more than insurance company welfare. It doesn't have jack-shit to do with healthcare.
He's right you know. Here in Europe we're so backward that we still marvel at the germ theory of disease. Only last week I had to miss work due to the Black Death. Luckily for me it was only a mild case and I'm up and running again. well hopping really, what with the gangrenous leg and all.
The socialised systems in Europe (or several countries here at least) suffer from the same problem as ObamaCare, and your current health care system: a powerful oligarchy of insurance companies. These companies have no incentive to drive down health care costs, on the contrary. They'd much rather pay twice as much and double our premiums at the same time. On top of that these companies (at least in NL) are building their own health care bureaucracies to do stuff that has little to do with insurance but looks nice, like helping customers live more healthy lives... useful stuff to be sure, but paid for by our premiums and very, very, very expensive.
One of our ministers had the right idea (he's a socialist but a clever fellow nonetheless, and smarter than many of his colleagues). Insurance is this: you collect premiums, and if someone stubs a toe, you pay their medical bill. If (like in NL) everyone is insured for basic healthcare at the same rates and under the same terms... why then do we still need insurance companies? What are they going to compete on? Simpler to let the gov't self insure and cut out these horribly expensive middlemen who add no value, leave the insurers to offer us packages for additional coverage.
If construction was anything like programming, an incorrectly fitted lock would bring down the entire building...
There's a budget for QALYs Quality Adjusted Life Years. That is, a treatment that costs twice as much but gives patients on average ten years more life instead of six months, is a huge win in QALYs terms. A treatment that costs $350 000 but only buys you an extra three weeks? Not worth the money.
The "Quality Adjusted" part is because living six months in your own home having a fairly normal life until the end, is better than six months in a hospital bed, sleeping 22 hours per day and barely able to recognise your loved ones. And a life spent with no eyesight is a lot worse than a life shortened by two weeks.
Anyway, breakthrough work is handled separately. For a totally experimental surgery, like implanting a liver grown in a non-human organism, or say, brain surgery, you first rule out options that we already know will get the job done and seem as safe or safer. So e.g. getting a perfectly good human liver, or, not having anybody poke around in your brain. Once you're sure you've checked the alternatives, you tell the patient, "We've got this experimental procedure. We think it could help, but we might be wrong and it'd just kill you right there". And if they understand and agree you just do it.
It's actually simpler to arrange all this in a place like the UK where healthcare is free at the point of access, because obviously you can't charge people for an experimental procedure like this. They're volunteers for an experiment, not paying customers. If your healthcare system never charges individual people anyway then that's fine because you're used to doing things that way, but otherwise it's kind of weird and causes legal hiccups.
What a load of bullshit.
I AM from Germany, we DO have a "socialized" system, and the solution to your bullshit scenario IS *regulation*.
So eat your heart out, you bumbling idiot!
Our government simply told the all statutory health insurance fund (is that the right term?) companies:
"This is how much money you can get. Period."
So to maximize profits, they *had* to drive down costs. And they did. It was so effective that we now also have to add regulation to prevent healthcare workers / doctors to earn too *little*.
And every big company has its own insurer / fund, which has no interests in profits, but in keeping the employees healthy and well. So they offer a load of non-required services like sports programs and other preventative things, but even pseudo-scientific things like acupuncture. Hell, I even get 200€ a year to waste on whatever shit I please. (I chose to replace the old dental fillings with a more modern material. Yes, 200â is enough for at least four such procedures!)
Now what, idiot?
They are in charge you know. Well, them and the porpoises until the new road goes through.
It seems obvious that the next step is to grow giant mice livers in humans!