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Inside the Effort To Print Lungs and Breathe Life Into Them With Stem Cells (technologyreview.com)

Posted by msmash on from the rewriting-life dept.

United Therapeutics, a startup that sells drugs to treat lung ailments, plans to use a 3-D printer to manufacture human lungs in "unlimited quantities." Bioprinting isn't a new idea. 3-D printers can make human skin, even retinas. Yet the method has been limited to tissues that are very small or very thin and lack blood vessels. From a report: United instead is developing a printer that it believes will be able, within a few years, to manufacture a solid, rubbery outline of a lung in exquisite detail, including all 23 descending branches of the airway, the gas-exchanging alveoli, and a delicate network of capillaries. A lung made from collagen won't help anyone: it's to a real lung what a rubber chicken is to an actual hen. So United is also developing ways to impregnate the matrix with human cells so they'll attach and burrow into it, bringing it alive.

[...] United has already made some risky organ bets. One of its subsidiaries, Revivicor, supplies surgeons with hearts, kidneys, and lungs from genetically engineered pigs (these have been used in baboons, so far). Another, Lung Bioengineering, refurbishes lungs from human donors by pumping warm solution into them. About 250 people have already received lungs that would otherwise have been designated medical waste. Don't expect fully manufactured organs soon. United, in its company projections, predicts it won't happen for another 12 years. United CEO Martine Rothblatt acknowledges that the printed structure I saw is just a start. "It's only two branches and no cells," she says.

57 comments

  1. What they' really working on by bobstreo · · Score: 0

    is figuring out how to make the replacement lungs only last 1 year, so the patients have to pay over and over.

    1. Re:What they' really working on by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      is figuring out how to make the replacement lungs only last 1 year, so the patients have to pay over and over.

      This is the last century that our children will have to be taught that one times one is one.

    2. Re:What they' really working on by b0s0z0ku · · Score: 1

      Not really - a lung transplant is a major procedure. Doing it more than a few times would likely kill the patient.

    3. Re:What they' really working on by vlad30 · · Score: 1

      No eventually 3d print a body (AKA sleeve) and transfer the brain

      --
      Your'e all thinking it, I just said it for you
    4. Re: What they' really working on by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      That's a good idea, in principle. The problem is in digital representation of the brain. There are more synaptic connections in the brain than there are molecules in the known universe. Even if you're able to represent each connection with a single bit, and somehow were able to compress the resulting data without loss, you'd also be to transfer activation state of each neuron.

      Since every synapse has a different set of receptors, with varying density, and non-brain factors from other organs affect the levels of neurotransmitters, hormones, and metabolic processes - and you'd need to accurately represent input/output networks - it's extremely unlikely that each connection could be reproduced with a single bit - dozens or hundreds seems more likely.

      It's conceivable that digital facsimiles could be possible one day, but there's a tremendous technical challenge within the bounds of what we already know, and we don't know how much is yet left to discover.

    5. Re:What they' really working on by cayenne8 · · Score: 1

      Not really - a lung transplant is a major procedure. Doing it more than a few times would likely kill the patient.

      Yeah, but small price to pay to be able to start smoking again!!!

      [BAEG]

      --
      Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........
    6. Re:What they' really working on by mysidia · · Score: 1

      Yeah, but small price to pay to be able to start smoking again!!!

      Apparently you never heard of other conditions which cause severe and irrecoverable damage to the lungs that have nothing to do with smoking.

      At least smokers' lungs can potentially heal (providing they haven't developed COPD).

    7. Re: What they' really working on by b0s0z0ku · · Score: 1

      Why copy the brain? Figure out how to get it to self-repair and literally plug it into a new body...

    8. Re: What they' really working on by Greystripe · · Score: 1

      One would likely start by doing brain-to-brain transfers and move on to a brain-to-device and then device-to-brain transfer. Once we can create "sleeves" there will be a rush to figure out a transfer process unless other technologies have been discovered to mitigate the need/desire.

    9. Re:What they' really working on by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Not really - a lung transplant is a major procedure. Doing it more than a few times would likely kill the patient.

      And?

      You seem to be under the assumption that death could never be a desired side effect of healthcare. Take a good hard look at medical insurance. You'll quickly see just how worthless your life really is, particularly as you start to reach that age where our medical community feels any effort really isn't worth it. That threshold is defined for a reason.

    10. Re: What they' really working on by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      âThere are more synaptic connections in the brain than there are molecules in the known universeâ(TM)

      Iâ(TM)m pretty sure those connections are made with âmoleculesâ(TM) in the known universe.

    11. Re: What they' really working on by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Two groups of ten items can have 100 distinct connections. We call distinct connections between neurons synapses. A neuron can have connections to up to 10,000 other neurons - there are 80-100 billion neurons in the brain. Assuming an average of 6000 synaptic connections holds, then they total 100,000,000,000^6000
      http://www.calculator.net/big-number-calculator.html?cx=100000000000&cy=6000&cp=20&co=pow

      That's a lot of zeroes.

    12. Re: What they' really working on by ChrisMaple · · Score: 1

      It's easy to get big numbers when you discard reasonable assumptions, such as "most connections are local."

      --
      Contribute to civilization: ari.aynrand.org/donate
  2. Big Organ is profiting off human suffering by bluefoxlucid · · Score: 1

    How long before we have to beg for lungs and mortgage our homes just to breathe?

    --
    Support my political activism on Patreon.
    1. Re:Big Organ is profiting off human suffering by CrimsonAvenger · · Score: 1

      As opposed to now, when we have to die when our lungs stop working, you mean?

      --

      "I do not agree with what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it"
    2. Re:Big Organ is profiting off human suffering by bluefoxlucid · · Score: 1

      Nobody seems to have a sense of humor, and some of the responses seem outright delusional. Not internally-inconsistent, but rather trying to connect one thing to another in ways that don't hold.

      --
      Support my political activism on Patreon.
    3. Re:Big Organ is profiting off human suffering by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0
      How long before we have to beg for lungs and mortgage our homes just to breathe?

      Incorporate yourself, and then subscribe to my hot new LaaS (Lungs As A Service) startup! We're disrupting the transplant industry by helping our clients turning their one-time capital expenditures into tax-deductible operating expenditures :)

    4. Re:Big Organ is profiting off human suffering by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      How long before we have to beg for lungs and mortgage our homes just to breathe?

      Go tell the people working on this that they have to work for free.

  3. Welcome to capitalism by drinkypoo · · Score: 1

    ...of which the basis is profiting from unmet need.

    --
    "You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
    1. Re:Welcome to capitalism by Scroatzilla · · Score: 1

      Isn't it the act of *meeting the need* that (rightfully) results in profit?

    2. Re:Welcome to capitalism by cascadingstylesheet · · Score: 1

      ...of which the basis is profiting from unmet need.

      You can theoretically get your replacement lung in communist countries, but it takes 5 years. If you know someone in the Party.

    3. Re:Welcome to capitalism by cascadingstylesheet · · Score: 2

      Isn't it the act of *meeting the need* that (rightfully) results in profit?

      No! It's so much better to not get needs met, as long as you stick it to the Man!

    4. Re:Welcome to capitalism by drinkypoo · · Score: 1

      Isn't it the act of *meeting the need* that (rightfully) results in profit?

      That's one theory. Another theory is that it is predatory to profit from others' need, and that profit should come from adding value, not from taking advantage of people. Most of the wealth in capitalism concentrates at the top, with those who are taking advantage of others — not with the people at the bottom, who are actually doing the work that serves the need.

      --
      "You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
  4. Insurance by sjbe · · Score: 2

    How long before we have to beg for lungs and mortgage our homes just to breathe?

    Just until the US gets a conscience and starts treating health care as a fundamental human right and providing care to all their citizens without them risking bankruptcy. Seriously, if you have a single payer health care system like most of the civilized world this isn't a problem.

    1. Re:Insurance by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      How long before we have to beg for lungs and mortgage our homes just to breathe?

      Just until the US gets a conscience and starts treating health care as a fundamental human right and providing care to all their citizens without them risking bankruptcy. Seriously, if you have a single payer health care system like most of the civilized world this isn't a problem.

      You're preaching to the choir. Most of us anyway. It's the Nazis you have to convince.

    2. Re:Insurance by sjbe · · Score: 1

      You're preaching to the choir. Most of us anyway. It's the republicans you have to convince.

      FTFY. Though sometimes I wonder if there is much of a difference...

    3. Re:Insurance by ahadsell · · Score: 1, Insightful

      And then, since no one can make money on it, no innovation occurs.

    4. Re:Insurance by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Just until the US gets a conscience and starts treating health care as a fundamental human right and providing care to all their citizens without them risking bankruptcy.

      Never gonna happen ... the Republicans will never allow that, because they view poverty as a moral defect.

      They campaigned on removing better health care, they're sure as shit not going to adopt universal health care.

    5. Re:Insurance by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      You're preaching to the choir. Most of us anyway. It's the republicans you have to convince.

      FTFY. Though sometimes I wonder if there is much of a difference...

      The Supreme Court decisions this week prove that Democrats place funding public employee unions above First Amendment-prohibited compelled association/speech/financial donations.

      Literally. Read Janus for Kagan's long-winded dissent in response to:

      Under Illinois law, if a public-sector collective-bargaining agreement includes an agency-fee provision and the union certifies to the employer the amount of the fee, that amount is automatically deducted from the non-member’s wages. 315/6(e). No form of employee consent is required.

      This procedure violates the First Amendment and can not continue.

      Yet it's Democrats and "progressives" who justify compelled association, speech and financial contributions in violation of the First Amendment because
      it funds the Democratic Party.

      Who are the Nazis here?

      I'm thinking it's the group who wants to force people to join organizations they don't want to.

      I'm thinking it's the group that wants to force those people to fund political speech they don't agree with.

    6. Re:Insurance by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      How long before we have to beg for lungs and mortgage our homes just to breathe?

      Just until the US gets a conscience and starts treating health care as a fundamental human right and providing care to all their citizens without them risking bankruptcy. Seriously, if you have a single payer health care system like most of the civilized world this isn't a problem.

      "Fundamental rights" are things that can't be taken away from you.

      Your right to free speech, etc.

      "Fundamental rights" are not things you demand that others do for you or give to you.

      If you THINK they are (and not just FEELZ it), explain to us all why "I want a pony!" isn't also a "fundamental right".

    7. Re:Insurance by Nidi62 · · Score: 1

      And then, since no one can make money on it, no innovation occurs.

      Because massive and unnecessary profits to insurance companies and hospitals is how innovation occurs.....

      --
      The only thing necessary for evil to triumph is for it to be pitted against a slightly greater evil
    8. Re:Insurance by Nidi62 · · Score: 1

      "Fundamental rights" are things that can't be taken away from you.

      So...life, liberty, and pursuit of happiness? If "pursuit of happiness" can be extrapolated to cover property then "life" could easily be extrapolated to cover health.

      --
      The only thing necessary for evil to triumph is for it to be pitted against a slightly greater evil
    9. Re:Insurance by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      "Fundamental rights" are things that can't be taken away from you.

      So...life, liberty, and pursuit of happiness? If "pursuit of happiness" can be extrapolated to cover property then "life" could easily be extrapolated to cover health.

      So?

      That still doesn't mean you have the right to compel someone else to give you more life, or make your health better. Among other problems, that's taking something, somehow from that other person.

      Giving more of something to you is not the same as taking something intrinsically yours away from you.

    10. Re:Insurance by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      These thing can be infringed on at the extreme peril of what ever ruler does the infringing. Marie Antoinette anyone.
      People will always reclaim these rights with the blood of the rulers.

    11. Re:Insurance by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      How much money should the government spend on people?

      One patient in Iowa costs $1 MILLION per month to keep alive. $12 million per year, year after year. Why should the government - or more appropriately, all the taxpayers - pay the lifetime salaries of 10 normal people every year for this ONE person?

      What about expensive cancer drugs and surgeries? A bad case of cancer can easily cost $1 million per year, and there are thousands of those people in the US. Should the taxpayers support those people, too sick to get out of bed, for years as they die in a most expensive manner?

      Your "civilized" countries have decided NOT to pay for those treatments, those drugs, and those surgeries. The "civilized" UK recently put police on a hospital room door, because they were afraid the parents of the infant inside might try to get him the medical care the UK refused to pay for.

    12. Re:Insurance by Ungrounded+Lightning · · Score: 1

      So...life, liberty, and pursuit of happiness? If "pursuit of happiness" can be extrapolated to cover property ...

      Actually (according to an historian of my acquaintance) the original buzzphrase, used heavily in the political debates of the time, was "Life, liberty, and property.". When he wrote the rough draft of the Declaration of Independence, Thomas Jefferson changed the last to "pursuit of happiness" to broaden it (while still including "property"). Acquiring stuff, and keeping others from taking it away or fooling with it, is part of pursuing happiness.

      So you don't need to extrapolate "pursuit of happiness" to include "property". But you DO need to extrapolate to warp "life" to include "medical care at others' expense to extend life".

      That's especially true since it's at odds with both "liberty" (enslaving doctors by forcing them to provide services on the government's terms) and the "property" component of "pursuit of happiness" (stealing/taxing/borrowing-with-promise-to-tax-to-pay-back money to buy medical goods and services, price-limiting medical supplies, etc.).

      --
      Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
    13. Re: Insurance by Nidi62 · · Score: 1

      Slavery? I must have missed it where states with single payer healthcare were pressganging people into become doctors. If you are trying to argue it's slavery because it forces doctors to charge certain prices, well, then they are already slaves because they can only charge what's been agreed upon with insurance companies. All single payer does is eliminate the unnecessary middleman that is insurance companies.

      --
      The only thing necessary for evil to triumph is for it to be pitted against a slightly greater evil
    14. Re: Insurance by Ungrounded+Lightning · · Score: 1

      If you are trying to argue it's slavery because it forces doctors to charge certain prices, well, then they are already slaves because they can only charge what's been agreed upon with insurance companies.

      IF they chose to accept a particular insurance company's special arrangements. (Many didn't, would charge what they chose, and any insured of the unaffiliated companies would be liable for the difference between what the medic charged and the company paid, if they chose to be treated by that doctor.)

      With even the half-hearted system of Obamacare, a large fraction of doctors chose to abandon their current patients and either retire or join large clinic operations capable of handling the red tape.

      All single payer does is eliminate the unnecessary middleman that is insurance companies.

      By replacing it with a government monopoly middleman, eliminating all competition and consumer choice, operating with the usual incompetence, corruption, and conflicted motives of any government program.

      Insurance companies can quit the medical insurance business or sign up to be the government middlemen, owned and funded by the original owners / stockholders but completely controlled by the government.

      Look up the definition of the economic system of fascisim.

      --
      Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
    15. Re:Insurance by ChrisMaple · · Score: 1

      Because massive and unnecessary profits to insurance companies and hospitals is how innovation occurs.....

      Massive and unnecessary profits ... so that's why hospitals go into bankruptcy.

      --
      Contribute to civilization: ari.aynrand.org/donate
  5. Really? by sjbe · · Score: 1

    figuring out how to make the replacement lungs only last 1 year, so the patients have to pay over and over.

    Wow, cynical much?

    1. Re:Really? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Given medical corporations raise drug prices on old drugs 10X, maybe you are gullible.

    2. Re:Really? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      figuring out how to make the replacement lungs only last 1 year, so the patients have to pay over and over.

      Wow, cynical much?

      There's a reason we accurately refer to it as the Medical Industrial Complex. Reality is far more fucked than any cynic could paint it.

  6. Own cells... by b0s0z0ku · · Score: 1

    If they can use humans' own cells to print the lungs, they can do away with the rejection issue...

  7. Comedy is tough by sjbe · · Score: 1

    Nobody seems to have a sense of humor, and some of the responses seem outright delusional.

    Or maybe you just weren't being as funny as you think you were. Happens to all of us sometimes especially online where tone is hard to convey... Admittedly joking about people mortgaging their homes to buy a lung is tough to pull off successfully unless you are standing on a stage in a comedy club.

    1. Re:Comedy is tough by bluefoxlucid · · Score: 1

      Yeah but not everybody needs to buy a lung. It's not like they could monopolize air...or lungs, for that matter.

      --
      Support my political activism on Patreon.
  8. Remember when the Republicans by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    tried to stop any research with stem cells?

    1. Re:Remember when the Republicans by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      That was fetal stem cells, this isn't. Nice try, asshole.

    2. Re:Remember when the Republicans by b0s0z0ku · · Score: 1

      Even with fetal stem cells, it's still worth it. Abortions will happen, legal or not. Might as well derive some use from them. This being said, the goal is to grow lungs from a patient's OWN stem cells -- removes the risk of rejection.

    3. Re:Remember when the Republicans by TheOldestGit · · Score: 0

      FFS You loons.

      This is probably the most interesting 'News for Nerds' in the past month - yet almost no comments, and those posted are attempting to be funny.

      Where did Slashdot go?

      RIP.

      --
      Having Leeched on /. for years I thought Hmmmmm-Subscribe!
    4. Re:Remember when the Republicans by Ungrounded+Lightning · · Score: 1

      Even with fetal stem cells, it's still worth it. Abortions will happen, legal or not. Might as well derive some use from them. This being said, the goal is to grow lungs from a patient's OWN stem cells -- removes the risk of rejection.

      Hear hear.

      Fortunately all around: Foetal stem cells, even when not rejected, tend to cause cancers when transplanted into an adult. (They get confused about what they should be doing.) Meanwhile, pluripotent stem cells from the patient (with pluripotency induced or just the right cells found) are really good at figuring out and doing the right thing if given a few chemical hints. Print the right growth factors into the right spots in the scaffold and/or spit the right cells into various places, and they just work together to build what should be the final organ. Immune compatibility comes with the package. (Even if the patient has autoimmune issues, starting with his own tissue may require fewer compensating adjustments than staring with a stock cell culture.)

      Foetal stem cells were important for research into the mechanisms of differentiation, growth, and repair. They are a lot farther back in the process than anything you can harvest from someone who has been grown to term and born, so you don't have to guess about how the early stages worked. Once the mechanisms are figured out, though, using a patient's own cells (or a compatible line derived from a voluntary donor), poking them into the right stage and branch of development, seems to have advantages beyond avoiding offence to common moral codes.

      --
      Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
    5. Re:Remember when the Republicans by Ungrounded+Lightning · · Score: 1

      This is probably the most interesting 'News for Nerds' in the past month - yet almost no comments, and those posted are attempting to be funny.

      Where did Slashdot go?

      Tell me about it. B-b

      Unfortunately, those afflicted with the left-wing meme set - a descendant of Stalinism - have gone into a full-court press on social pressure, in every venu where they can rant.

      That leaves the non-afflicted among us (along with those afflicted with competing memes) with a choice between:
        * letting the SJWs rant unopposed (and use Slashdot as yet another indoctrination tool) or
        * replying to them (providing a sanity check and moral support for those not yet inducted into their religion, at the cost of continuing each digression and inflating its volume).

      Some of us think that opposing tyranny is worth standing up and being counted, even if it dilutes our beloved forum's information content.

      --
      Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
  9. Clueless by sjbe · · Score: 1

    Given medical corporations raise drug prices on old drugs 10X, maybe you are gullible.

    Yeah yeah drug companies are greedy, news at 11... You really think lung transplants are the same thing? Here's a clue - drugs have big capital costs to develop but cost very little to replicate. There is no way a lab grown lung is going to be cheap to manufacture or easily sold multiple times since it involves major surgery. Nobody is going to be able to afford this treatment without insurance and insurance sure as hell isn't going to pay the hundreds of thousands of dollars for a lung that doesn't last. You're basically arguing that insurance companies aren't profit motivated.

    1. Re:Clueless by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I was replying to your implication the poster was cynical. My post was to tell you the poster has a reason to be cynical. The entire medical industry has turned into the mob. The health industry now steals the government funded research and turns it into money makers for them and then they balk at paying taxes on the profits. It is criminal. If I were on a jury and someone with cancer whacked a CEO of a drug/hospital/insurance company you can bet my vote would be NOT GUILTY.

  10. Research and $ by sjbe · · Score: 1

    And then, since no one can make money on it, no innovation occurs.

    You seriously think no medical innovations come out of Europe or Japan or China or that companies there make no money on drugs or medical devices? If you think that then you'd be wildly wrong.

    1. Re:Research and $ by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      You seriously think that those companies aren't making a good chunk of their profit off the US market? If you think that then you'd be wildly wrong.

  11. Liberal Is Pro-Slavery by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    And if there aren't enough doctors to perform the transplants, we will raid Canada take their doctors and enslave them. After all it is a fundamental right for you to get healthcare, but not for doctors to decide if they should have to work or not.