Current Progress
In April 2006, scientists reported a successful trial of seven bladders grown in-vitro and given to humans. A bladder has been cultured by Anthony Atala of the Wake Forest Institute for Regenerative Medicine in Winston-Salem, North Carolina. A jawbone has been cultured at Columbia University, a lung has been cultured at Yale. A beating rat heart has been cultured by Doris Taylor at the University of Minnesota. An artificial kidney has been cultured by H. David Humes at the University of Michigan.
Silk cut from silkworm cocoons has been successfully used as growth scaffolding for heart tissue production. Heart tissue does not regenerate if damaged, so producing replacement patches is of great interest. The experiment used rat heart cells and produced functional heart tissue. In order to further test applications to humans as a cure, a way to transform human stem cells into heart tissue would have to be found.
Read more about this topic: Organ Culture
Famous quotes containing the words current and/or progress:
“Phlebas the Phoenician, a fortnight dead,
Forgot the cry of gulls, and the deep sea swell
And the profit and loss.
A current under sea
Picked his bones in whispers. As he rose and fell
He passed the stages of his age and youth
Entering the whirlpool.”
—T.S. (Thomas Stearns)
“Columbus stood in his age as the pioneer of progress and enlightenment. The system of universal education is in our age the most prominent and salutary feature of the spirit of enlightenment, and it is peculiarly appropriate that the schools be made by the people the center of the day’s demonstration. Let the national flag float over every schoolhouse in the country and the exercises be such as shall impress upon our youth the patriotic duties of American citizenship.”
—Benjamin Harrison (1833–1901)