Researchers Hope To Grow Human Ears From Fat Tissue

Zothecula writes "Researchers at London's Great Ormond Street Hospital aim to grow a human ear via stem cells taken from a patient's fat tissue. Relatively little attention has been given to the reconstruction of damaged cartilage around the cranial area, however the new method is hoped to modernize this area of reconstructive surgery."

Comments

Rimshot

[jo7hs2]

I'm all ears.

Why not go whole hog and make pancreatic cells?

[anubi]

I have way too many friends who are diabetic and their insulin production is down.

I do not mean to take away from anything, but I would sure love to see research like this directed to problems that affect the lifestyles of a large number of people.

I know they are working on it, but personally, I would like to see them throw all they've got at these pesky insulin and maintenance drug problems where just a little chemical injection by a tailored cell assembly would do the trick. Forcing patients to be tethered to the pharmacist with little bottles of pills has got to go.

Re:Why not go whole hog and make pancreatic cells?

[noh8rz10]

problem is that a condition that requires maintenance med is already considered "solved", and approximately $0 will be spent on finding a "one time" solution. the maintenance situation is the golden goose - people will pay for drugs every month for the rest of their lives!! mega benjamins!

Re:Why not go whole hog and make pancreatic cells?

[Anonymous Coward]

"Insulin production is down" is misleading. Most type 2 diabetes is based on insulin resistance: *Type 1* diabetes, though is mostly an auto-immune problem that destroys all beta cells, and that can benefit from transplants *if the auto-immune problem is addressed*. It has never been addressed properly, so none of the transplant procedures have worked out for Type 1.

In fact, according to Dr. Faustmann's work at MGH, if you address the auto-immune problem with correctly applied BCG vaccine and tight blood sugar control, it cures Type 1 diabetes. Insulin producing cells generate naturally, from adult stem cells, at least in the lab animals. They're starting the second round of human testing now. Look at http://www.faustmanlab.org/ for some links to the research.

It's also in indicator of the problem of "just slap more tissue in". Like so many fat people who get stomach surgery, or people who get rurgery for RSI, unless the *cause* of the problem is addressed, it will just recur, even with surgical intervention.

Re:Why not go whole hog and make pancreatic cells?

[Warbothong]

Ears are an easy target because their function mainly comes from their shape; you could make them out of wood and they'd still do a semi-decent job. The problems being tackled here are making the right shape (presumably with a scaffold), getting the host body to maintain it (ie. hooking up the blood supply) and preventing rejection (by using the host's own stem cells).

On the other hand, making tissue that reliably synthesises vital chemicals, in the right quantities, is much more difficult. Thankfully, solving the problems listed above will *also* be useful to growing pancreatic tissue.

Pinnas not ears

[Orangebeard]

It's not the whole ear they are trying to grow but rather the pinna. The ear is the entire organ which includes all the structures of the inner ear, middle ear and outer ear. The pinna is the visible part of the ear.