Cells As Building Blocks
Tissue engineering utilizes living cells as engineering materials. Examples include using living fibroblasts in skin replacement or repair, cartilage repaired with living chondrocytes, or other types of cells used in other ways.
Cells became available as engineering materials when scientists at Geron Corp. discovered how to extend telomeres in 1998, producing immortalized cell lines. Before this, laboratory cultures of healthy, noncancerous mammalian cells would only divide a fixed number of times, up to the Hayflick limit.
Read more about this topic: Tissue Engineering
Famous quotes containing the words cells, building and/or blocks:
“The twelve Cells for Incorrigibles ... are also carved out of the solid rock hill. On the walls of one of the cells human “liberty” is clearly inscribed, with the “liberty” in significant quotation marks.”
—Administration in the State of Ariz, U.S. public relief program (1935-1943)
“And when discipline is concerned, the parent who has to make it to the end of an eighteen-hour day—who works at a job and then takes on a second shift with the kids every night—is much more likely to adopt the survivor’s motto: “If it works, I’ll use it.” From this perspective, dads who are even slightly less involved and emphasize firm limits or character- building might as well be talking a foreign language. They just don’t get it.”
—Ron Taffel (20th century)
“The quest for certainty blocks the search for meaning. Uncertainty is the very condition to impel man to unfold his powers.”
—Erich Fromm (1900–1980)