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Scientists 3D-Print Ovaries To Allow Infertile Mice To Mate and Give Birth (theguardian.com)
An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Guardian: Infertile mice have given birth to healthy pups after having their fertility restored with ovary implants made with a 3D printer. Researchers created the synthetic ovaries by printing porous scaffolds from a gelatin ink and filling them with follicles, the tiny, fluid-holding sacs that contain immature egg cells. In tests on mice that had one ovary surgically removed, scientists found that the implants hooked up to the blood supply within a week and went on to release eggs naturally through the pores built into the gelatin structures. The work marks a step towards making artificial ovaries for young women whose reproductive systems have been damaged by cancer treatments, leaving them infertile or with hormone imbalances that require them to take regular hormone-boosting drugs. Of seven mice that mated after receiving the artificial ovaries, three gave birth to pups that had developed from eggs released by the implants. The mice fed normally on their mother's milk and went on to have healthy litters of their own later in life. Writing in the journal Nature Communications, the scientists describe how they printed layered lattices of gelatin strips to make the ovary implants. The sizes and positions of the holes in the structures were carefully controlled to hold dozens of follicles and allow blood vessels to connect to the implants. Mature eggs were then released from the implants as happens in normal ovulation.
Unfortunately, your lopsided view of things does not always work well. Take for instance if we were going to engineer a better human race, tools like this would be useful to promote the genes. Or if there were a mistake with sterilization, maybe it could be reversed. Your trolling here is not appreciated.
--Beau
How exactly was the gelatin engineered to respond to estrogen and release an egg only upon estrus? I'm guessing it wasn't, and this printed ovary just periodically released eggs. The article also contains this gem: "an ovary implant could also help cancer survivors whose eggs are so damaged that they need hormone replacement therapy to trigger puberty". My understanding is that eggs don't cause puberty; and this 'ovarian prosthetic' does nothing to grow new follicles, so if your eggs are damaged, you're still sterile.
Corruption is convincing someone that the selfless ideal is the same as their selfish ideal.
For most cancers in general, that would probably be true, but not for cancer of the female reproductive system. Only about 20–25% of ovarian cancer is believed to be caused by a genetic predisposition (specifically by one of two relatively common gene mutations that also cause a genetic predisposition for breast cancer). And approximately 0% of cervical cancer is believed to be hereditary; rather, it is generally believed to generally be caused by the HPV virus. So no, it is not generally indicative of a hereditary condition.
Check out my sci-fi/humor trilogy at PatriotsBooks.
While I understand where you are coming from and agree with some of your statements (exploitation for profit), there are people in this world that could emotionally benefit if this research leads to applicability in humans.
My wife and I adopted because we couldn't have children naturally (even medically assisted). We received worse news after, when due to a life threatening medical condition, my wife's ovaries had to be surgically removed. Our women in the world face this situation more often than we think (https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3913114/).
The ovaries are quite important to the health and wellbeing of women. Hormones get produced, and, if removed early in life, require nasty, side-effect bearing hormone supplement therapy. Early menopause is an unpleasant thing to young women (N.B.: as a man, I cannot put this in proper words - I only experience this as a partner to a woman).
If there were a way to restore my wife's womb and ovaries, we would - even though we wouldn't use this for procreation. It would be for her mental and physical wellbeing.
If I drew a parallel to male conditions, like testicular cancers requiring the removal of a ball or two and researchers found a way to 3-D print a set, people would applaud their efforts. So, you can STFU!
Two, "hard reality" when it comes to biomedical science? "Adopt rather than have a baby" is a weird place to draw the line. "The hard reality is if you get cancer, you should probably just accept there are more than enough people on earth, so just hurry up and die and be glad you get time to make peace with it rather than in a car accident."
Three, TFA specifically points out, in case high school biology fails you, that the ovary does more than just poop out eggs.
The goal of the project is to be able to restore fertility and endocrine health to young cancer patients
A woman in her 20s gets ovarian cancer and is unable to reproduce ever again, that's bad enough, but there's also the added awfulness of menopause. Osteoporosis, heart disease, a bunch of other shit that cancer survivors really shouldn't have to deal with.
Fourth, tissue engineering like this is really in it's infancy. Successfully duplicating an organ should be exciting to you even if you don't happen to have that organ and you aren't convinced the organ's function is really so important. You like your testicles functional? How about having a non-diabetic pancreas? Odds aren't bad you'll have problems with some organ some day and could benefit from a new one. Lessons learned here won't be strictly confined to ovaries, it makes it more likely an organ you'll want to replace will be possible. Plus, what the fuck? Slashdot is news for nerds who are supposed to like technology. Just because it's wet, squishy, and feminine, we've decided we don't like THIS technology?
Fifth, how much time and money were "wasted" on this? From NIH reporter, it looks like $300,000 was spent specifically on this project. About a third of a single tomahawk missile, like the 60 we used to do fuck all in Syria in a vain attempt to boost Trump's ratings. Or less than three times as much as has been raised to make onesies for fully grown manchildren.
In conclusion, leave questions about science and priorities to the adults.
"better human race"... only hind-sight will decide the "better" part. "Be careful what you wish for..."
This issue is a bit more complicated than you think.
Crap. Thanks for reminding me to renew my Science License!
Infertile females don't produce the "follicles, the tiny, fluid-holding sacs that contain immature egg cells" which are implanted. They would have to come from a fertile donor. Am I missing something?
And approximately 0% of cervical cancer is believed to be hereditary; rather, it is generally believed to generally be caused by the HPV virus.
Rubbish. It's a multifactorial process. While HPV is an important factor genetic predisposition is also a factor. Not all women infected with a given carcinogenic strain of HPV develop cancer. So what's the variable? Genetics.
Seven puppies were harmed during the making of this post.
There's no real order: Hearts and kidney efforts are well underway. Liver might be a bigger priority than kidneys actually. Dialysis is terrible compared to where we need to be with kidney function, but IIRC it's much further than where we are with liver dysfunction. Plus livers seem to have a better ability to organize and repair itself. The kidney would need a lot higher architectural precision, so it's a more distant goal unfortunately.