artificialorgans
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Biotech firm wants to deliver organs using a passenger drone
Do you remember the EHang "delivery drone for humans" from CES 2016? The company is still around, and has cranked up the level of hype with a new deal. It will develop and produce 1,000 copies of the drone for Lung Biotechnology PBC, a company that wants to manufacture lungs and other artificial organs. The biotech firm plans to station Ehang's drone, which will be re-purposed as the "Manufactured Organ Transport Helicopter (MOTH)," outside its facility. Then, it will transport artificial organs to needy patients at hospitals, according to the news release.
Cotton candy machines help create artificial organs
You may have seen some pretty unusual ways to make artificial organs, but Vanderbilt University might have just topped them all. Its researchers have developed a technique for making the templates of artificial organs using a cotton candy machine -- that's right, the machine whipping up treats at the county fair could effectively save your life. The team discovered that the same centrifugal process that melts sugar into delicious, fluffy strands also turns hydrogel into cell-friendly microfibers that behave like capillaries in the human body.
Regenerative medicine pioneer continues changing lives with first successful laryngotracheal implants
Dr. Paolo Macchiarini is no stranger to world firsts, and less than a year after performing a synthetic windpipe transplant, the Karolinska Institute Professor has coordinated no less than two successful transplants of synthetic sections of larynx. Amazingly, both patients were able to breathe and talk normally straight after surgery, the basic functions we take for granted that they either struggled with or were simply unable to do before. The implants consisted of personally designed synthetic scaffolds coated with the candidates' own stem cells, so there's neither the chance of rejection nor the burden of life-long immunosuppressant therapy. Despite the amazing feat, Dr. Macchiarini ain't done yet, claiming this is the first of many steps towards building a synthetic, complete larynx -- voice box and all. Jump past the break for the official PR issued by Harvard Bioscience, the company responsible for growing what's in that tub.
Invetech 3D bio-printer is ready for production, promises 'tissue on demand'
Say hello to "the world's first production model 3D bio-printer." What you're looking at is a machine capable of arranging human cells and artificial scaffolds into complex three-dimensional structures, which result in such wonderful things as replacement liver and kidney tissue, or such simple niceties as artificially grown teeth. All we're told of the internal workings is that the bio-printer utilizes laser-calibrated print heads and that its design is the first to offer sufficiently wide flexibility of use to make the device viable. Organovo will be the company responsible for promoting the new hardware to research institutions, while at the same time trying to convince the world that it's not the fifth sign of the apocalypse. Maybe if the printer didn't have a menacing red button attached to it, we'd all be a little less freaked out by it.
