edinlexusV8 Posted July 7, 2011 Share Posted July 7, 2011 I have been waiting for this news for some time. Finally nano tech meets the biotech ... I may be too optimistic but in 30 years from now we should be able to replace all our ageing organs, easily living for 150 years or possibly even longer! Seriously this is a possibility! http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-14047670 Surgeons carry out first synthetic windpipe transplant By Michelle RobertsHealth reporter, BBC News, in Stockholm The replacement windpipe was grown in the lab Surgeons in Sweden have carried out the world's first synthetic organ transplant. Scientists in London created an artificial windpipe which was then coated in stem cells from the patient. Crucially, the technique does not need a donor, and there is no risk of the organ being rejected. The surgeons stress a windpipe can also be made within days.The 36-year-old cancer patient is doing well a month after the operation. Professor Paolo Macchiarini from Italy led the pioneering surgery, which took place at the Karolinska University Hospital. In an interview with the BBC, he said he now hopes to use the technique to treat a nine-month-old child in Korea who was born with a malformed windpipe or trachea. Professor Macchiarini already has 10 other windpipe transplants under his belt - most notably the world's first tissue-engineered tracheal transplant in 2008 on 30-year-old Spanish woman Claudia Costillo - but all required a donor. Indistinguishable. The key to the latest technique is modelling a structure or scaffold that is an exact replica of the patient's own windpipe, removing the need for a donor organ.To do this he enlisted the help of UK experts were given 3D scans of the 36-year-old African patient, Andemariam Teklesenbet Beyene. The geology student currently lives in Iceland where he is studying for a PhD.Using these images, the scientists at University College London were able to craft a perfect copy of Mr Beyene's trachea and two main bronchi out of glass.This was then flown to Sweden and soaked in a solution of stem cells taken from the patient's bone marrow. After two days, the millions of holes in the porous windpipe had been seeded with the patient' own tissue. Dr Alex Seifalian and his team used this fragile structure to create a replacement for the patient, whose own windpipe was ravaged by an inoperable tumour. Despite aggressive chemotherapy and radiotherapy, the cancer had grown to the size of a golf ball and was blocking his breathing. Without a transplant he would have died. During a 12-hour operation Professor Macchiarini removed all of the tumour and the diseased windpipe and replaced it with the tailor-made replica. The bone marrow cells and lining cells taken from his nose, which were also implanted during the operation, are able to divide and grow, turning the inert windpipe scaffold into an organ indistinguishable from a normal healthy one. And, importantly, Mr Beyene's body will accept it as its own, meaning he will not need to take the strong anti-rejection drugs that other transplant patients have to. Professor Macchiarini said this was the real breakthrough. "Thanks to nanotechnology, this new branch of regenerative medicine, we are now able to produce a custom-made windpipe within two days or one week. "This is a synthetic windpipe. The beauty of this is you can have it immediately. There is no delay. This technique does not rely on a human donation." He said many other organs could be repaired or replaced in the same way. A month on from his operation, Mr Beyene is still looking weak, but well. Sitting up in his hospital bed, he said: "I was very scared, very scared about the operation. But it was live or die." He says he is looking forward to getting back to Iceland to finish his studies and then returning to his home in Eritrea where he will be reunited with his wife and young family, and meet his new three-month-old child. He says he is eternally grateful to the medical team that has saved his life. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jonathanc Posted July 7, 2011 Share Posted July 7, 2011 Playing God... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
edinlexusV8 Posted July 7, 2011 Author Share Posted July 7, 2011 Playing God... hmm .. in that case we should close all our hospitals and stop doing any operations/surgeries to increase human life span. Infact the moment our species started thinking and getting more intelligent that is when we started playing god ... if you call it playing GOD! Maybe we should not think at all in the first place if you dont want to play GOD. Then you will never know about GOD either! Catch 22 init? Coz if you think and use intelligence you will end up playing GOD and prove GOD dont exist and if you dont think (prob because of no intelligence) then you will not play GOD but then you will not also dont understand the word GOD. Either way GOD dont exist. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
j_jza80 Posted July 7, 2011 Share Posted July 7, 2011 If you believe in god, you believe he gave us these abilities. The danger with these technologies, when they mature, will be serious over population IMO. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
edinlexusV8 Posted July 7, 2011 Author Share Posted July 7, 2011 If you believe in god, you believe he gave us these abilities. The danger with these technologies, when they mature, will be serious over population IMO. But then with those abilities you question why he gave us those abilities? May be these abilities are given to us after all to PLAY GOD. Yes over population is a very serious problem because we end up use more and more resources. No surprise why our abilities also gave us contraception. Over population and excessive use of natural resources is mostly in countries that dont use contraception (trying not to play god) and are mostly poor (cannot afford to pay for contraception). To be honest believing in GOD is not going to make our population any less. You know that and I know that. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
imi Posted July 7, 2011 Share Posted July 7, 2011 cannot afford to pay for contraception Really...any examples? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
edinlexusV8 Posted July 7, 2011 Author Share Posted July 7, 2011 Really...any examples? Not everywhere in the world they give away free condoms and have free national health service paying for contraception. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jazz1 Posted July 7, 2011 Share Posted July 7, 2011 If I'm correct was the human body not made to live till 145 years anyway? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Scott Posted July 7, 2011 Share Posted July 7, 2011 Must admit I haven't seen the spec sheet yet Jazz. What's your source? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jazz1 Posted July 7, 2011 Share Posted July 7, 2011 Must admit I haven't seen the spec sheet yet Jazz. What's your source? I may not be correct Im pretty sure i read it somewhere..... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Scott Posted July 8, 2011 Share Posted July 8, 2011 Considering the healthy die young and the unhealthy die old there is no timescale on longevity. When it's your time it's your time. Sure you can add some years by being good to your body, or takeaway some years by endulging etc, but for the best part it's a lottery. Average age tells you the age that bodies are generally designed to live to. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lbm Posted July 8, 2011 Share Posted July 8, 2011 If I'm correct was the human body not made to live till 145 years anyway? Yogic flyers can reach 180 or so. Fact. An incredible operation nonetheless. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
j_jza80 Posted July 8, 2011 Share Posted July 8, 2011 but then with those abilities you question why he gave us those abilities? May be these abilities are given to us after all to play god. Yes over population is a very serious problem because we end up use more and more resources. No surprise why our abilities also gave us contraception. Over population and excessive use of natural resources is mostly in countries that dont use contraception (trying not to play god) and are mostly poor (cannot afford to pay for contraception choose not to use contraception as it makes hanky panky boring). To be honest believing in god is not going to make our population any less. You know that and i know that. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Suprash Posted July 8, 2011 Share Posted July 8, 2011 Was watching this on the new earlier, pretty amazing stuff Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AndrewOW Posted July 8, 2011 Share Posted July 8, 2011 The advancements that Microsoft are making these days. They'll produce a biotech phone that's completely implantable next! It'll be crap, but some will believe the hype. A very clever operation that. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paul R Posted July 8, 2011 Share Posted July 8, 2011 Where does nanotechnology come into it? Paul. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pezzler Posted July 8, 2011 Share Posted July 8, 2011 The advancements that Microsoft are making these days. I-pipe Nano Want me an 2gb I-kidney with anus USB Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
stevie_b Posted July 8, 2011 Share Posted July 8, 2011 If I'm correct was the human body not made to live till 145 years anyway? Given that no-one's lived to that age, I find that hard to believe. Some parts might technically be good for 145 years, but they're useless without the rest of it. The thermostat on an Austin Allegro was made to last 200 years, but the shell would have turned to rusty dust after about 10. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Thorin Posted July 8, 2011 Share Posted July 8, 2011 If I'm correct was the human body not made to live till 145 years anyway? A few hundred years ago you might have said the human body was not made to live till 45, let alone 145. Oh wait, the bible has all sorts of people living well into triple figures, so that can't be right. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paul R Posted July 8, 2011 Share Posted July 8, 2011 Why are we being compared to cars?? We werent designed or made, we evolved and grew! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Scott Posted July 8, 2011 Share Posted July 8, 2011 why are we being compared to cars?? We werent designed or made, we evolved and grew! ibtl Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tbourner Posted July 8, 2011 Share Posted July 8, 2011 Where does nanotechnology come into it? Paul. That's what I thought. I was expecting some clever nano-bots that repair cells or something. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
edinlexusV8 Posted July 8, 2011 Author Share Posted July 8, 2011 The advancements that Microsoft are making these days. They'll produce a biotech phone that's completely implantable next! It'll be crap, but some will believe the hype. A very clever operation that. I can see you would like to take a dig at me because I support some of the MS stuff ... but let us leave that to another thread shall we? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kill1308 Posted July 8, 2011 Share Posted July 8, 2011 Crazy op, pretty cool I reckon! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
edinlexusV8 Posted July 8, 2011 Author Share Posted July 8, 2011 Where does nanotechnology come into it? Paul. Good question. Nano technology is used to program stem cells to grow into a specific tissue/organ. Every organ can be grown from stem cells including the brain & eyes (though growing brain is still at a theoretical level compared to other organs). I always wondered how the two sections in the industry dealing with non-organic stuff (physics & chemistry) and the other dealing with organic stuff (biology) has been evolving separately will catch up with each other as they go down to the smallest level where they both appear to look the same. Where the boundary between organic and non organic doesnt exist. To put it in another way, biological matter and nonbiological matter are made up of the same basic elements at the smallest level (carbon, hydrogen, nitrogen, oxygen etc). Organic tissue is made up of cells and each cell again is made of various proteins including DNA which in turn are made up of these basic elements having their own complicated compound structure. Each cell in any tissue have their own life span and they multiply and also die. In human body millions of cells are born everyday and so also millions die everyday. But the strange thing about death is that suddenly all the cells across the body in all the tissues and organs decide to die. There was once a great program on BBC horizon looking to the issue of death at cellular level cant find it. It was quite interesting. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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