Don’t you just love science fiction?  Because the best science fiction involves conjecture of the world as it could be.  I remember being mesmerized by Tom Swift, Jr., as a young boy.  Other than the delusion perpetrated that Victor Appleton II wrote the series (instead of Harriet Stratemeyer Adams), they were wonderful books.  (I only read the first 16; then I graduated to Robert Heinlein.)

I also read my father’s books about Tom Swift- officially written by Victor Appleton (the purported father of the II), but really penned by the book purveyor Edward Stratemeyer, Harriet’s dad.  I was amazed at how much of what Edward conceived as fiction turned out to be truly available when I was a child.

And, now a new science fiction is coming to life.  Oganovo, based in San Diego, is making bioprinting (3D “printing” of human organs) real-life. Instead of ink, the Organovo 3D printers uses living cells.  These are precision-placed into microplates or similar forms.  The architecture chosen and the delivered nutrients afford the development of human tissue.

Now, Organovo is not making these organs to be put into my body or yours.  Nope.  That would entail years- maybe decades of testing.  Instead, Organovo’s organs are the means by which the pharmaceutical companies can determine if they have developed safe and effective drugs, using real tissue- without the chance of harming a soul.

The big plus- no artificial items, only real biomaterials.   Another plus- their 3D printed liver is more robust than liver cells derived from tissue culture, lasting longer and functioning more like normal liver tissues (including producing the compounds transferrin, albumin, and cholesterol).

Organovo has now reported that their synthetic liver can survive for at least 40 days.  And, it has some 20 layers of hepatocytes (liver cells), with some endothelial (skin cells)- and a blood vessel that supplies the necessary nutrients and oxygen.

Among their customers include Pfizer, United Therapeutics, and the Knight Cancer Institute.  Now, they hope to snag some customers to effect drug pathology studies.  Soon enough, assuming the FDA so approves, they will develop tissue-engineered therapies; implanted functional tissue or tissues for repair and replacement.

But, that does not mean we won’t see artificial organs soon.  (OK- within the decade.) Dr. Francisco Fernandez-Aviles of the Gregorio Marañón hospital in Madrid has his own technique.  From procured cadaver hearts, he produces a scaffold (a structure) upon which human cells can grow.  [You can find out more about scaffolds here.] How?  By washing away the cadaverous cells using industrial detergents.  The goal is to take stem cells from the subject (the patient) and have them grow onto the scaffold, yielding a functional heart.  Since the cells are those of the human subject, there is no need to supply anti-rejection drugs when this is implanted, which increases the usefulness and capabilities of the replacement organ immensely.

Aviles is building on the pioneering work of Dr. Doris Taylor (then of the University of Minnesota, now the Director of Regenerative Medicine Research at the Texas Heart Institute, collaborating in the Madrid research listed above).  Using an engineered scaffold from a rat, she created a beating rat heart.  The issue is that a human heart is bigger (d-uh) and has many different kinds of cells- those that beat, those that form blood vessels, those that transmit electric signals that keep the beats in synchrony, etc.  But, it seems the cells know exactly what to do- differentiating and adhering and growing where they need to be just by be placed on the scaffold.  (Is the scaffold responsible? We don’t know.)  But, a pacemaker was required for the synchronized beating.

Other groups are working on different organs.  Dr. Alex Seifalian (University College, London) has actually implanted his hybrid devices into humans- but they are not as complex.  Tear ducts, arteries, and an artificial nose are among his developments. I have written often of the work Dr. Atala’s group at the Regenerative Medicine Institute of Wake Forest. [Besides the first link above and this one, you may check for Atala in the index.]   His group has grown bladders and urethras for implantation- and they have been functional for years.  They, too, are working on an artificial liver.

I’m hoping that these will turn out like those Tom Swift stories- scifi at first blush, but real soon enough.  How about you?

 

 

By the way, I have just completed a short monograph- What every small business needs to know about Obamacare.

 It will tell you what you need to do, how you can save money- maybe even get a tax credit for the years 2010-2013, even though the requirements don’t kick in until January 0r even January next.