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Why Your New Heart Could Be Made in Space One Day (bbc.com)
Imagine a laboratory growing human hearts - and imagine that laboratory floating in space hundreds of miles above the surface of the Earth. That may sound like science fiction, but bizarre as it seems, it could bring new hope for transplant patients within the next decade. From a report: While about 7,600 heart transplants were carried out around the world in 2017, there's a desperate shortage of organs, with thousands of people on waiting lists dying every year. Efforts to grow human hearts in the lab are showing promise, but are hampered by the need for the organs to grow around a "scaffolding" to make sure they don't collapse during the process. Reliably removing the scaffolding once the heart is complete is proving to be a challenge.
Space tech company Techshot believes zero gravity could be the answer. The International Space Station (ISS) is in constant freefall around the planet, meaning that anything inside experiences effective weightlessness, known technically as microgravity. This means organs could be grown without the need for any scaffolding, believes Rich Boling, the firm's vice-president of corporate advancement. One day hearts could be grown commercially for transplant, Techshot believes. [...] Developed in partnership with Nasa, Techshot's BioFabrication Facility (BFF) is a microwave oven-sized device that uses 3D printing techniques to create patches for heart repairs using a patient's own stem cells.
Space tech company Techshot believes zero gravity could be the answer. The International Space Station (ISS) is in constant freefall around the planet, meaning that anything inside experiences effective weightlessness, known technically as microgravity. This means organs could be grown without the need for any scaffolding, believes Rich Boling, the firm's vice-president of corporate advancement. One day hearts could be grown commercially for transplant, Techshot believes. [...] Developed in partnership with Nasa, Techshot's BioFabrication Facility (BFF) is a microwave oven-sized device that uses 3D printing techniques to create patches for heart repairs using a patient's own stem cells.
How much will it cost to launch the needed starter cell culture into space, presumably have someone up their manning it (even if mostly automated), return it from space...etc.
Even Walter White probably didn't get enough meth money to buy a new heart. In the US this would mean new hearts would only be for the wealthy. Can the process be done in bulk? Or can we get the cost of launch down enough?
"That's the way to do it" - Punch
Scientists had invented some type of material that dissolves in tissue over time...
Living organisms grown in space have shown a wide range of unwanted behaviour, lack of gravity provides zero clues to the organ or organism as to what direction is up or down and you would just end up with 7 heartpits all disconnected in a spiral arrangement that arises from circling the planet
So an organ that evolved to grow and work in a 1G environment will be grown in a 0G environment? Methinks there might be some consequences to that. If they can pull it off that would be amazing but that sounds like quite a challenge. It's not immediately clear to me how 0G removes the need for scaffolding entirely. Would it not just change the type of scaffolding needed rather than removing the need entirely? Could be an improvement of course - I'm not bashing the idea - just trying to think it through. Fluids and other chemicals behave differently in the absence of gravity and I'd be shocked if that wasn't a big technical hurdle.
Assuming the technology is workable though the real problem will be funding the research. Researching this will require spending some pretty serious time in orbit and despite the best efforts of SpaceX and others that remains pretty darn expensive and will remain so for some time to come.
Not for me. I will continue to take my clunky metal body off to see the wizard.
You can pry my old heart from my cold dead hands!
Oh wait.
Human hearts are routinely grown in our 1G environment. The standard procedure uses a woman, but she is more for life-support than for 'scaffolding'. The fetus floats around in - liquid!
So don't grow hearts on a lab bench - grow them in a suitable tank. And if water doesn't have the exact right buoyancy, then mix in some inert liquids to change that.
Could be maybe but won't. It costs thousands of dollars per pound to send stuff back and forth to space. If it needs to be done in space, most will die for lack of funds to do it.
That doesn't mean that it isn't worth exploring the process further.
Maybe it's just a matter of starting them in gravity and then move them to weightless once they've started to take shape.
Since there are some people rich enough to take their private jet to wherever there is a spare organ it shouldn't be impossible to find someone willing to pay for having a heart transported to and grown in orbit.
Billions of hearts, human and otherwise, have grown right here on Earth by themselves. Technology and science will get better and we won't need these absurd 1960s space fantasy solutions.
Wait, what?
Your heart is in your hands?
Oh dear. I thought that was a spot.
This may explain my attraction to brains.
One more incredible medical service that will be available to those who can afford it. Gotta take care of rich folks! Who would give the rest of us jobs?
I get it that there currently needs to be some kind of base that the heart grows around, but what is it made out of? If it is just just regular plastic, why not make it out of something that is dis-solvable by some kine of water or maybe salt water solution, that way after the heart is built, it just gets washed out in the inspection process. I'm sure that smarter minds than mine have thought about this, but I know there is always an easier way.
They are MASSIVE penises, and they are growing in UNDERWATER SUBMARINES. I could happen one day.
The first problem is that we in the U.S. can no longer put people into orbit. The second problem is no one knows whether a projected zero-G heart could stand up to the rigors of one-G life. The third problem (were the first two problems to be solved) is the incredible expense.
Lab-grown hearts (assuming they are practical) should be done right here on terra firma. No space cowboys needed.
The best solution is get off your lazy ass, exercise, and cut way back on the Twinkies.
Circle the wagons and fire inward. Entropy increases without bounds.
*chest
Living organisms grown in space have shown a wide range of unwanted behaviour, lack of gravity provides zero clues to the organ or organism as to what direction is up or down and you would just end up with 7 heartpits all disconnected in a spiral arrangement that arises from circling the planet
It could work.
Or we could just allow people to sell organs and BAM, no shortage. Organ shortage is an example of how a human hangups gets in the way of simple economics. Supply and demand is a law; "it's wrong to sell organs" is an ultimately meaningless moral judgment that can't outweigh a law. If we want to find "people doing what they want with their own bodies" reprehensible that's fine, we just have to accept the consequences that organs will be in short supply and other people will die.
Wait, what?
Someone to yell Kalima, rip my still beating heart out, and toss it into molten lava, what else?
<Sarcasm>Yea, there is a chance that such an experiment may not work. So why bother trying at all. Sure the benefit can mean a way to save lives. But there are variables which are untested and we don't know 100% what the results are. So lets not try. </Sarcasm>
For a site, that is suppose to cover science and technology news, there is a heck of a lot of posts of people just coming up with reasons out of the blue, on why it will fail miserably. While Scientific reporting is general really bad, but there are a lot of things that are worth a shot to try. Especially, if a success could be beneficial.
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
Supercharged 7 chamber hearts will be the next thing banned from sports.
..and you won't have to worry about anyone growing you a 'replacement', nor being able to afford a 'replacement'. Cheaper and better to maintain the engine properly than it is to replace it.
Most of our organs were grown in a neutral buoyant environment, which has a lot of the same effects of being in 0g.
Some but not all. There are two very important differences. Objects in neutral buoyancy still experience the effects of gravity on their mass. This affects fluids and tissues significantly. The second is that friction and drag is still in play in neutral buoyancy due to the fluid medium. We already know that microgravity has a measurable effect on muscle growth and structure and the heart is a muscle.
The idea of growing organs in microgravity is an interesting one but there are a lot of potential reasons why it might not work. It seems unlikely that microgravity would provide all benefits with no problems.
I don't have an answer. It's probably the same reason they contribute very little to nothing to the present, though.
The article came from someone whose job title is "vice-president of corporate advancement", in other words, a marketing drone.
The heart is meant and alas DESIGNED to work and operate under surface conditions. There is ZERO evidence to prove a miserable and infantile theory that growing organs in space would be at all beneficial to any species especially given the fact that we know that even just being in low earth orbit that some people call space ( lol ) has only detrimental if not outright deadly effects on humans. So yeah lets save the money on trying to lenghten the lifetime of the wealthy few and spend it elsewhere MORE USEFUL
Want me to give you my heart? Better get a telescope coz its gonna be in spaaaaccceeee!
Hearts grow while pumping blood. At birth the heart has over 8 months experience in getting control signals & properly pumping in most efficient manor.
Scientisst propose to grow hearts, install hearts, connect nerves, then start the new hearts. Never mind the scaffold residue problem. Do you want a full grown, never trained, never used heart in your body?
So in the next 10 years we can be growing new hearts on ISS?
ISS is supposed to make it to 2024. Boeing is conducting a study to see if it can make it 2028.. 2029 is a year after that.
Looks like another plan/projection that exists in a vacuum..
Or is the guy trying to get 150 Billion USD to build a new space station to grow hearts (I vote we name it "Tin Man") ?
For a site, that is suppose to cover science and technology news, there is a heck of a lot of posts of people just coming up with reasons out of the blue, on why it will fail miserably. While Scientific reporting is general really bad, but there are a lot of things that are worth a shot to try. Especially, if a success could be beneficial.
I dunno if a lot of people have aged into curmudgeon-land, but I agree. These experiments are worthwhile doing. Will it fail? Quite possibly.
But it might work, and it might end up solving the rejection issue. Some of our olde fartes declaring it a failure might just be interested in that.
The only downside I can think of is peripheral. If we make it possible for people to have a brand new strong young heart, there are many other killers waiting in the wings. We've come a good ways in treating cancer, but having many more people surviving heart problems just to go through that long slow death of dementia is hardly an improvement.
But hell yeah, the experiments themselves are pretty cheap - we have the space station, we have the tools, Do it.
The shepherds did so well protecting the flock that the sheep no longer believed that wolves existed.
This is some Bezos level pricing - radiation deflection up the wazoo so the things grow ok in space, power supply, heating, servicing and what have you. Flying it up there, flying it back - astronomical... pricing. That's some seriously expensive heart.
Considering the morality of some of the rich, wouldn't it be easier to just harvest them from some very fit, stem celled up 'donors'? I'm sure within 15 years China will have some PREEMO organs up for grabs, we're talking Syndicate (yes, that Syndicate) level upgrades here, eyes, hearts, legs, arms etc.
Probably a bit cheaper and simpler to just grow them in a fluid with neutral buoyancy. Maybe thatâ(TM)s not possible, but Iâ(TM)m not going to take the word of the guy selling me space launches.
https://www.eff.org/https-everywhere
Make it degrade when exposed to a specific enzyme or catalyst after the structure is completed...
Manufacturer's warranty: 5 years or 500,000 heart beats, whichever comes first.
Under no circumstances shall the tissue be exposed to:
1. Blood alcohol concentrations above 0.01 %
2. Stimulants as defined in the USP
3. Elevated pulse rate activities such as: Sex, Exercise, Anger, Fear, Excitement, or Fun.
4. Accelerations or deccelerations at rates greater than 5 m/sec/sec. (An emergency stop from 60 over 3 seconds is 180% of that)
5. Bacteria, fungi, or viruses unless preapproved.
6. Loud music.
7. Atmospheric pressures less than 9 psi, this is approximately equivalent to 4000 m. All travel by plane is prohibited.
Warranty shall not be enforceable other than by the original owner. All claimants agree to binding arbitration.
There's zero evidence that it won't work.
No part of the human body was designed,
On earth, human hearts are inside the body, supported by the flesh around them. The net effect of gravity on a heart inside the body is substantially lower than a standalone heart.
Some of the reasons that microgravity is hard on humans are known. They are irrelevant to the growth of a heart in a microgravity environment.
It's not your money, so STFU.
Contribute to civilization: ari.aynrand.org/donate
The same equally distributed 1g gravity applies to whether if you fart above or below water surface. 1g is constant and is essential for the healthy growth and cell formation. There is a very good reason we dont send pregnant women to space.