Posted on 11/26/2014 11:12:33 PM PST by 2ndDivisionVet
Researchers in Germany have grown complete spinal cords – partly thanks to a gene called sonic hedgehog.
As regenerative medicine and stem cell technologies continue to progress, so the list of tissues and organs that can be grown from scratch – and potentially replaced – continues to grow. In the past few years, researchers have used stem cells to grow windpipes, bladders, urethras and vaginas in the lab, and, in some cases, successfully transplanted them into patients.
Others are making progress in growing liver and heart tissue; one team in London is busy growing blood vessels, noses and ears; and some have even managed to grow tiny chunks of brain tissue, the most complex of all the tissues in the human body. Now, researchers in Germany report that they have grown complete spinal cords from embryonic stem cells.
Most efforts to grow tissues and organs rely on biodegradable scaffolds....
(Excerpt) Read more at theguardian.com ...
Just one?
I knew the GOP Congress jokes would be out in force on this thread...
“urethras and vaginas”
What, no penises? I could see a “big” demand for those.
In After The GOP Leadership Jokes...
Congress to researchers in Germany: Tear down that lab!
It’s called low-hanging fruit.
Maybe grow them some balls as well?
Talk about bad timing, what with Sonic's latest game (Sonic Boom: Rise of Lyric) being absolutely terrible.
Unless the spinal cord can be grown inside the patient’s spinal column I don’t see the point. And unless the new spinal cord can attach to the existing branching nerves what is the good. I can’t imagine a surgeon opening up an entire spinal column to implant an entire spinal cord in a patient’s existing vertebra.
It will also be a neat trick to establish a blood supply to the new spinal cord.
As pure research it is a fantastic accomplishment but there is I suspect decades of more research to go before it is practical.
I think the object here is to figure out how to help the body stimulate new growth so that the body regenerates new tissue and heals on its own.
I have a dear friend whose spine is shaped like the number 7 just below the sternum, the result of a motorcycle fall. It would be amazing to see him walk again.
There will be a 3-D printed human heart before Mr. Obama leaves office and there is already a liver. Never say never.
Oh yeah, this one is ripe for the picking.
The spinal cord is essentially brain inside a flexible bone.
Pretty hard to imagine the surgery that will replace that with something grown outside the body. Especially when you consider that the spinal cord tells the heart to beat and the diaphragm to inflate the lungs.
If you grow the spinal cord inside the spine what happens to the dead spinal cord that is there? How do you remove it before the new cord grows?
It is a fascinating problem. Pretty exciting stuff.
I have a nephew that I am very fond of that has be paralyzed from the waist down for 25 years. I pray that this research moves quickly but I realize the hurdles are huge. Probably bigger than I realize.
Possibly.
But the research described is growing the spine in a in petri dish.
Certainly the most logical path is to grow the spinal cord inside the spinal column.
But even that would present problems. The growing spinal cord would have to either attach to existing nerves or grow past and replace existing nerves.
How do you get this new spinal cord to do these things? If it does these things what is the outcome? Does the growing spinal cord create new problems? Could it cause heart erythema as it replaces old nerves?
I don’t mean to be a naysayer but I can’t help but think of issues that may have to be dealt with while progress moves along.
It’s all part of the process. It’s generally easier to study complex processes by isolating each factor and learning from it than to try and study it the whole thing altogether
The article say embryonic and not adult stem cells, this will mean big money for abortion clinic waste.
have used stem cells to grow...vaginas in the lab,”
Uh oh...
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