Posted on 09/02/2016 1:12:27 PM PDT by 2ndDivisionVet
We recently reported on an alliance between four companies that has 3D printed heart structures in a weightless environment. As the first installment of our regular new feature where we put one big question to one really smart person, we asked Euguene D. Boland, the chief scientist of Techshot — one of the companies involved in the research — what the single biggest impediment is to having lab-grown organs available right now.
The single biggest impediment is one familiar to many other engineers in their disciplines as well, it's transport. In our case, we are not moving people or cars or airplanes but nutrients and waste to and from every cell in that organ in a tightly orchestrated balance.
In a natural organ, every cell is within only a couple of cells of a small blood vessel and if that cell or cell cluster is supposed to secrete something like insulin, a growth factor or digestive enzyme, there is a duct for that as well nearby. These tiny ducts and capillary vessels are often smaller in diameter than a single cell which makes them extremely difficult to engineer by standard technologies we can deploy. Fortunately, there are biological techniques to build these structures. This is where the breakdown usually happens.
We can culture large numbers of cells on flat sheets or a few layers thick and we can use unnatural compounds to create these capillary beds, but we have not been able to put them together yet. Furthermore, we have only been able to build small beds and that's not how nature works.
Branching out
Blood vessels are not that dissimilar to an oak or maple tree. If you would imagine the heart is the main trunk, and the outermost branches are the outermost roots. It starts as a single large volume and then keeps splitting and branching and is clear that the volume in the periphery is larger than in the central core, but all the leaves are eventually fed by a single point where those leaves represent cells.
Too many people are trying to grow organs by the equivalence of growing a tree by gathering a pile of leaves and hoping. Nature does it with a seed but that takes a long time and what if you don't want the whole tree?
Sticking with this arborist analogy, what we are doing is very similar to grafting. We believe that adding engineered larger vessels, vessel fragments and cells into a lab-grown organ construct can jumpstart the process by giving our newly formed tissue somewhere to attach and immediately begin the transport process to be fed and have waste removed while the tissue matures and begins to sense signals that will tell the organ what to absorb or secrete.
Best and brightest
This approach is neither straightforward nor simple. In fact, it is the topic of a NASA Centennial Challenge. NASA, together with the Methuselah Foundation, is offering $500,000 for the tissue-engineering team that can reliably produce one-centimeter-thick vascularized living tissue. This is not even an organ, it is merely living tissue. They are challenging the best and brightest to finally step forward and prove all the claims circulating in the popular press about tissue engineering breakthroughs.
The second half of our team's plan is to do the printing of these tissues in low-Earth orbit. We believe this will afford us the ability to eliminate mechanical limitations in the bioink (blend of cells, proteins, polymers, growth factors and other additions combined into a single solution), which will improve the biological response after printing.
Every major university has at least one program involved in bioprinting/organ development these days and I do believe we will see a breakthrough within the next 10 years.
Fascinating! I still don’t really understand how 3D printing works, but it’s amazing. Human ingenuity is truly a gift.
Living comes from living. Living matter is an integrated whole, with different parts all functioning for the benefit of the organism.
Breaking a living organism into small, discrete pieces kills the organism. As I said at the beginning, living comes from living.
The same reason applies to the science fiction fantasy of “Transporters”, as in Star Trek.
I read where every atom in the brain is replaced over ten years. Then why do I still have all the symptoms of head injury I had 10 years ago, well most.
Can ANY vitamin or supplement do ANYTHING for a damaged nerve cell (Cells) in the brain 10 years later or am I wasting money?
Will a 3D printer EVER be helpful for TBI vets, print a new thalamus? Or is that absurd?
How do stem cells help a symptom that is CAUSED by damaged cells. The damaged cells will STILL be there.
Why am I asking this on FR when Doctors at Mayo probably aren’t sure :)
Because the pattern of injury is replicated by the replacement atoms.
That's why genetic research is so amazing - the genes would replicate the original functioning model, not the damage.
“The same reason applies to the science fiction fantasy of “Transporters”, as in Star Trek.”
If the transporters really worked, they would be the greatest mass murder machines ever. One moment you are in location A. All your cells are broken down, converted to electrical impulses and reassembled in location B. But the person who was in location A has ceased to exist. His cells and his memories have been relocated and reactivated. The new person at location B has those memories and believes he is the same as the person in location A, but he isn’t. He merely thinks he is the same person.
We saw this several times when characters were divided into good and evil twins. Sometimes technology shouldn’t happen.
They replicate the damaged ones?!?!?!
Why?!?!? lol
Doesn’t my brain know i’m suffering!!!??? :)
We’ve got 300k soldiers out there whose damaged brain cells are replicating the same damage, how long till everybody can expect any real help?
Best guess. 10 years? 20 years?
They give stem cell injections here in the bloodstream but that’s for bodily injuries. Wont help the brain, right?
That's ok. The author of this article doesn't have a clue about how organs function or why the shape isn't necessarily what determines functionality, but it didn't stop him from writing an article about it.
Hammond wants to know!
I read where every atom in the brain is replaced over ten years. Then why do I still have all the symptoms of head injury I had 10 years ago, well most.
Because the pattern of injury is replicated by the replacement atoms.
That’s why genetic research is so amazing - the genes would replicate the original functioning model, not the damage.
That’s just stupid.
Genetic “replication” would “replicate” both the “Pattern of injury” and the “Original functioning model, not the damage”
That is, truly amazing.
If you took a few minutes to do just a little research you will find that well over 90% of all “Genetic Mutations” lead to the Death of that species.
Simply Amazing.
BTW, nobody’s “head injury” can be genetically pasted on to their offspring.
If the transporters really worked, they would be the greatest mass murder machines ever. One moment you are in location A. All your cells are broken down, converted to electrical impulses and reassembled in location B. But the person who was in location A has ceased to exist. His cells and his memories have been relocated and reactivated. The new person at location B has those memories and believes he is the same as the person in location A, but he isn’t. He merely thinks he is the same person.
Actually, there is no way to prove it one way or the other. It's an interesting philosophical question.
Yuki looked at me. "What is 'primary'? Everything is data. Two copies of the same data are indistinguishable. They are the same."
I shook my head. "Uh, no, you don't get it. Haruki died. It's not the same guy. He's still dead. Your guy is a clone. We humans have this concept called a soul."
She waited. The two delinquents just looked at me and said nothing. I had to tackle this one on my own.
"Uhm, let me try to explain this. Ok, here's an analogy. Let's pretend that you have a mind transfer machine. You know, a machine like that one in the movie Young Frankenstein. Say that you zapped my mind into Frankenstein, and you swapped his mind into mine."
She didn't react so I kept going.
"Ok, now you pick up a gun. You shoot me, my body I mean. I'm dead. So here's the question: Who is left alive now?"
"You."
"No! I died. My body died. That's just a copy, a replica."
"No. It is the same."
"No it is not! I died. Someone else is taking my place. If I was in heaven I'd probably be pretty pissed off about it."
"I do not understand."
Kyonko finally spoke up in my defense. "You're saying it is not the same 'you'. It's a different person."
"Yeah. Thanks for finally helping me out here."
"I'm sorry, Kyon. I want to help you, but I'm not saying that I agree with you. In fact I think I don't."
"Aw c'mon!" I pounded my chest. "This is me. This stuff right here. These atoms that make up my body, my brain, are me. If you shoot my brain I'm dead. If you can somehow magically recreate a new brain, and give it the same neurons, the same interconnections, it's just a clone. It looks like me, talks like me, walks like me, quacks like me, but it is not me. It is a different duck!"
Yuki was being patient with me. "That is not logical. Your 'clone', as you call it, is made of exactly the same data. Therefore it is the same. Two copies of the same data are indistinguishable."
Kurosawa leaned into Kyonko and whispered, "He's a materialist."
I overheard him. "Dang right I am! If you shoot me in the head, I'm dead. Forever. My soul, or whatever you want to call it, is kaput."
I was getting worked up. "Look, I don't believe in heaven. I only believe in what I can see. And even if I did believe in it, I am pretty sure that I would be pretty pissed off when I looked down from my fluffy white cloud. I mean, down there is some other guy, some imposter jerk, down there pretending to be me, taking my place!"
Kyonko leaned in my direction. "Kyon, I'm sorry but you're view is simplistic. If you are trying base your identity, your 'you', solely on the basis of your physical body, it won't work."
I banged my chest again. "Yes it does! This is my body, my stuff, this is me!"
"You really think so?"
"Well, yeah!"
Kurosawa was shaking his head.
Oh that's just great. Those two delinquent wonderbrats were ganging up on me. I didn't care. I was determined to fight this one to the bitter end.
I crossed my arms. "I'm not changing my mind on this."
I wasn't bothered by Yuki's view. To her everything is data. It was only natural for her assume that duplicate data was indistinguishable. And there was no way to reconcile her viewpoint with mine. And I was cool with that - would we just have to agree to disagree.
It was the wonderbrats that annoyed me. They weren't helping me at all. Although Kyonko looked at me sympathetically.
Then one of them demolished my view like a house of cards. It took me by complete surprise.
It wasn't the wonderbrats. It was Yuki.
"Kyon, every atom, every molecule in your physical brain, is replaced approximately every three years through metabolism and waste elimination."
"What?"
"Yes. It is true."
"Huh?"
Kurosawa giggled. "She means your brain gets flushed down the toilet every three years."
"You're kidding."
Yuki continued to blast away my argument. "Yes. It's replaced. Completely. The physical 'stuff' of your brain, as you call it, is gone. So where is the 'you' now? Where is your 'soul', so to speak?"
I admitted I didn't know.
"It is data combined with an actualizer. It is your DNA coding sequence combined with the enumeration of your neural connections between your axons and synapses. Then it is actualized. All within the system. You understand?"
I didn't.
Kyonko explained. "You see what she is saying? By 'actualized' she means the analogy with the phonograph and the record player. You remember that? Think of the record player as the atoms in your physical body. Your body is 'playing' that data, those neural interconnections that create your mind, that create the being that you call 'you'.
Kurosawa caught on. "And that dance of chemical receptors and electrical energy is the actualizer, your physical body playing the song, right?"
Kyonko said, "You got it!"
It kind of made sense, I guess. But I still resisted.
And someone was watching it all happen. The Higher Power that had created the sim that ran everything.
She said, "He's so smart, don't you think?" She pinched his cheek. He flinched. "Stop that!"
Kurosawa rubbed his cheek as he leaned towards me. "Let me try to explain what Yuki is saying." He used an analogy. "You remember Star Trek, the transporter on that TV show?"
"Uh, yeah.."
"You remember Leonard 'Bones' McCoy, the ship's doctor? He always hated the transporter. He called it 'that infernal contraption that's always flinging my atoms all over the place'. The transporter converted matter to energy, transmitted it, and then converted the energy back into matter."
"Yeah. He really hated that thing."
"Right. Well, you are like McCoy. The transporter is actually just transmitting data, along with the raw energy to reassemble it back into matter. The atoms in the source pad were destroyed and turned into pure raw energy. It's Einstein's basic equation, E equals m c squared. Then on the planet the transporter ran the equation backwards to create different atoms, new atoms, in the same configuration using that raw energy. But the energy itself is always fluid, undifferentiated."
"So you are saying they weren't the same atoms?"
"That's right. So in McCoy's view the transporter killed him. Then it created a clone of him on the planet surface. That's your view too, Kyon."
"I guess so.."
Kyonko chimed in. "Don't you see? Yuki is saying was that it doesn't matter. Your identity is tied to your data, not the particular atoms in your body. In her view you are just transported. It is still the same 'you'."
"Wait. So, let's say you cloned me somehow, and you copied my mind too. You copied it exactly. Now tell me, what happens? Are there two of 'me' now? I mean, two bodies with the same soul?"
"Yes Kyon. There would now be two of 'you'."
This was nuts.
She went on. "But as soon as that happens they diverge. Each clone has a different experience. The neural configuration changes. They quickly become two separate people."
"You mean their, uh, souls, split?"
"That is semantics. But I believe that the answer would be yes."
Wow. I need to tell McCoy about that. Version 342 that is.
I remembered an episode of Star Trek where the transporter malfunctioned. It beamed up two copies of Kirk, the good Kirk and the evil Kirk. So they were in fact two entirely separate people. They both had unique identities. Unique 'souls' in my point of view. And when Scotty fixed the transporter to re-merge the two halves, the normal Kirk popped out. It was the same soul as the original.
I understood. The soul and the body were separate. They weren't the same. I remembered that French philosopher, that René Descartes guy. The guy who said 'I think, therefore I am.' He believed in, what was it, oh yeah, Cartesian Dualism. That was it. Dualism. The soul and the body are separate entities.
So your body could die but your soul could remain.
Hmm.. so in a sense maybe Yuuki really did go to Heaven after all? I mean, if his data was reconstituted into a new body. Maybe at that higher level. Or maybe his Creator would then inject him into a new reality down at our level. Let's call that Heaven, or Paradise, or Elysium, or the Happy Hunting Grounds, or whatever.
I wish my Creator would give me a new body. My back always hurts.
"Ok guys.. I'm starting to track you. So the 'backup copy' is just as real as the original."
I waited for Yuki to say "Yes".
But she didn't.
"Regrettably, no."
Wait, what? Darn it, I thought I was beginning to understand. What the heck is she trying to say now? She threw me off again... [End excerpt]
For more in-depth exploration of this interesting topic see the YouTube video The Trouble With Transporters.
It's a fun video that explores in depth the whole question of self-identity (materialist vs informational) using the Star Trek transporter as a thought experiment.
Cells get replaced by ‘stem cells’, think of the stem of a plant’, that’s why they’re called stem cells. If the stem is damaged, it can no longer grow replacement cells for that organ, or that part of an organ. The brain is a very complex organ, but for other organs, like the cornea of the eye, stem cells are able to be harvested from good tissue, or the other eye, diced up, grown in a culture to form new cornea tissue, then transplanted over the injured eye with great success - and this is being done in India, of all places.
Genetic “replication” would “replicate” both the “Pattern of injury” and the “Original functioning model, not the damage”...
That’s a hard sentence to understand for a layman. The pattern of injury is different than the damage? Thanks in advance.
Yeah any help for brain injury (any real help) is far away, I think. Rats.
New stem cells wouldn’t affect your memory or you being “you”?
Read the post I replied to.
That is what Talisker posted.
It is just stupid.
Not only do you have literally everything backwards, you're rude as well. What you are pushing is called "Lamarkism" and it is long debunked. You've also totally misinterpreted the very clear point I made that is plainly and obviously true by definition: The DNA is the MODEL, not the injury. Atomic replacement is diffusionary, SUBJECTIVE and independent of the model. And "genetic mutations" are nowhere involved in this conversation AT ALL.
I've never seen anyone screw up an objection as badly as you did. You have three LEVELS a failure. Are you a public school administrator?
...the genes would replicate the original functioning model, not the damage.
Please explain.
a few of the body’s cell types endure from birth to death without renewal, and this special minority includes some or all of the cells of the cerebral cortex...
So I guess most of the brain is the brain we’re born with?
I’ve had so many symptoms that I thought were forever improve or mitigate or go away. Over 10 years. I dont know if that’s new cells or old cells healing.
For a few year I had to use the bathroom every 6 or so hours because I would Never feel an urge to urinate. Then it came back.
Used to wake up with horrific tremors and they have gotten better, not gone, but definitely better.
Some of these things change MANY years after the injury.
The feeling like 1000 bees stung the back of my head and left side of my face, that has stayed!! :)
So, don't attempt to define my in that way. (it's rude)
Please help me understand how your statement;
Because the pattern of injury is replicated by the replacement atoms.
Is different than Lamarkism or even how this is supposed to work.
Also, I read somewhere, some headway is being made using stem cell brain tissue replacement - but that's all I remember. :(
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