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WASHINGTON, June 13, 2016 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- NASA, in partnership with the nonprofit Methuselah Foundation's New Organ Alliance, is seeking ways to advance the field of bioengineering through a new prize competition. The Vascular Tissue Challenge offers a $500,000 prize to be divided among the first three teams that successfully create thick, metabolically-functional human vascularized organ tissue in a controlled laboratory environment. "The humans who will be our deep space pioneers are our most important resource on the Journey to Mars and beyond," said Steve Jurczyk, associate administrator for NASA's Space Technology Mission Directorate in Washington. "The outcome of this challenge...

A showdown is shaping up in some of the nation's most conservative states over embryonic stem cell research, as opponents draw language and tactics from the battle over abortion to counter President Barack Obama's plan to ease research restrictions. Legislation granting fertilized embryos "personhood" has gained momentum in at least three state legislatures. *snip*

One of the pillars of German industry, the giant but debt-crippled Schaeffler car parts supplier, was accused yesterday of using hair shorn from at least 40,000 Auschwitz death camp prisoners to make textiles at its factories in Nazi-occupied Poland during the Second World War. The highly disturbing allegations were contained in new evidence unearthed by Polish historians at the Auschwitz museum, who said they had found rolls of fabric made from camp inmates' hair at a former Schaeffler factory in Poland's southern region of Silesia. The discovery was the latest in a series of damaging blows for the ailing Schaeffler...

A Chinese cosmetics company has been using skin taken from the bodies of executed convicts to develop beauty products for sale in Europe, a London newspaper reported. An agent for the company informed customers it is developing collagen for lip and wrinkle treatments from skin taken from prisoners after they had been shot. The agent said some of the company‘s products have been exported to Britain, and that the use of skin from condemned convicts was “traditional" and nothing to “make such a big fuss about,“ the Guardian reported In addition to ethical concerns, there is the potential risk of...

BEIJING, March 10, 2006 (LifeSiteNews.com) – A Chinese official has recommended to parliament that the country begin experimenting with euthanasia as a precursor to legalization. Zhao Gongmin, a Chinese Academy of Social Sciences researcher, claims that public opinion strongly supports the practice, with supposed surveys showing as much as 80 percent support. “I think it is only a matter of time for euthanasia to become legal,” Zhao said, according to a Shanghai Daily report. “Therefore, we should allow some experiments on the local level for the purpose of accumulating experience.”“Conditions are not ripe yet for nation-level legislation on euthanasia, but...

Shocking body parts investigation (X-ray shows PVC piping) (Cathy Orosz, WROC-TV)Tonight four people face criminal charges, including the head of Bio-Medical Tissue Services, a downstate company that harvested human tissue and organs for transplants. 8 local funeral homes and 3 area hospitals are also tied to the investigation. Very graphic and gruesome details unveiled here Thursday by the Kings County district attorney. The shocking local link is that more local funeral homes did business with BTS than previously thought. Over the course of four years, investigators say body parts were harvested from 1,077 corpses without knowledge of family members and...

CHICAGO -- Every year more than 1 million Americans have medical procedures that use bone or other tissue from a cadaver -- like disk replacements or dental implants. But what if the donated tissue came from someone who died of cancer? Or AIDS? Or hepatitis? That worry caused by a ghoulish scandal in the body parts business has led to distress for hundreds of people, and some prospective patients are now reconsidering how they want their surgeries done. Experts familiar with the situation say patients' chances of getting a disease from the suspect tissue are small, but doctors are urging...

When it comes to the body, they say you can't take it with you when you die. But they didn't say it should be sold from the back of a truck. Or that you should not have the right to give a fully informed consent for whatever it is that medical science wants to do with your remains. Recently it was revealed that a group of criminals was stealing bones from bodies at crematoriums in New York. They were then sold to for-profit tissue banks in New Jersey and Florida. Among the victims was the late host of PBS television's...

Sen. Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.) on Monday announced that he is proposing legislation that would regulate tissue transplants and donations, Long Island Newsday reports. The majority of tissue now comes from hospitals, though it is not illegal for funeral homes to sell tissue (Ochs, Long Island Newsday, 1/24). However, Schumer's legislation would make it illegal for tissue banks to purchase tissue, bone and muscle from funeral homes or morgues, with exceptions for types of tissue in short supply. Schumer also would tighten FDA oversight by requiring the agency to make unannounced visits to tissue banks at least once a year (Livingston,...

CHARLOTTE, N.C. -- Human tissue stolen from funeral homes in New York may have been implanted in at least 26 patients of four Charlotte-area hospitals. None of the patients appears to have been harmed. Officials at Carolinas Medical Center and Presbyterian Hospital in Charlotte and Catawba Valley Medical Center in Hickory say they notified doctors and patients after learning patients received bone and other tissue. The tissue came from companies that bought material from Biomedical Tissue Services of New Jersey. Biomedical is under investigation for allegedly removing bone and tissue from corpses without permission from families and selling them for...

Stolen Human Tissue Stolen human tissue ends up in several mountain patients who went into the hospital for surgery. The material was stolen from funeral homes in New York that removed bone and tissue from corpses without getting permission from families. Now hospitals around the state are looking into whether any of their patients got the stolen tissue. Officials at Mission Hospitals say 16 patients may have received some of the stolen tissue. They believe that although the tissue may have been stolen it was still sterilized and tested for infectious diseases. Mission Hospitals' Dr. Dale Fell says patients were...

Human tissue contaminated Colorado company failed to follow anti-infection rules By Allison SherryDenver Post Medical Writer Wednesday, August 21, 2002 - A Colorado company may have shipped tainted human tissue to hospitals this spring, according to a federal inspection report that found numerous violations of the company's own safety rules. U.S. Food and Drug Administration officials issued a seven-page warning letter to Englewood company AlloSource Inc. in early July for failing to follow the company's own policies in handling cadaver skeletal and muscular tissue. The company ships to hospitals in five states.One patient who received donated human tissue from...