Tissue Engineering Essays

Tissue engineering is an emerging interdisciplinary field that uses principles from engineering, biology and chemistry in an effort towards tissue regeneration. The main draw of tissue engineering is the regeneration of a patient’s own tissues and organs free from low biofunctionality and poor biocompatibility and serious immune rejection. As medical care continues to improve and life expectancy continues to grow, organ shortages become more problematic.(Manufacturing living things) According to organdonor.gov, a patient is added to the waiting list every 10 minutes and an average of 18 people die everyday waiting for an organ donation. The “nirvana” of tissue engineering is to replace the need for organ donation altogether. This could be achieved using scaffolding from

I watched Anthony Atala’s speech “Growing new organs” in TED Talks, and was convinced by Anthony that even engineered organ was very a controversial topic, it still brought benefits to patients who need tissue replacement. Anthony’s strongest delivery attribute was his language choices. He opened his speech by showing a story and research statistics of organ transplantation. For example, he pointed out: “every 30 seconds, a patient dies form diseases that could be treated with tissue replacement.” Anthony used the story and number wisely because he caught my attention and brought my interest to his speech. Also, Anthony used examples and stories of his own experience as a surgeon and a researcher. He not only established his credibility, but

This new research uses the scaffolding technique combined with stem cells to grow a heart. The new breakthrough was made using poor quality donated hearts. There were first stripped of heart tissue, leaving only the scaffolding of the heart. All of the tissue must be gone so that a potential patient won't risk rejection.

Adult stem cells have already proven to be successful in treating diseases and have helped hundreds of thousands of patients, and new clinical uses expand almost weekly. Adult stem cells can be obtained from cord blood, fat, neural tissue, muscle, bone marrow, placental and skin cells. Adult stem cells are increasingly being shown to have a similar and perhaps an identical capacity to become cells of other types. There is a possibility that adult stem cells may function more efficiently and more safely than embryonic cells. Treena Arinzeh, a young professor who last year won a Presidential Award, the nation's highest scientific honor, is bringing the promise of stem cell research one step closer to reality. Adult stem cells also have a unique trait that lends them their magic: Under the right conditions, or given the proper signals, they have the ability to turn into different cell types. Arinzeh is doing exactly that: developing signals, in the form of biomaterials, that will help adult stem cells turn into cells that, if injected into a diseased area of the human body, could regenerate damaged tissue. Her research has also led to two major stem-cell discoveries: One showing that stem cells, when mixed with biomaterials known as scaffolds, can help regenerate bone growth; and another proving that stem cells taken from one person can be successfully implanted into another. A list of conditions for which stem-cell treatment holds promise grows almost daily: It now

Stem cell research is the future of medical and biological research and remedies, and it is fascinating to watch the progression of this new and important science as it unfolds. These cells were discovered in mouse embryos in the 1980s, and are remarkable because of their potential to grow into a variety of different kinds of cells within a body. Common in fetuses, and more rare in adult animals of all kinds, stem cells can be manipulated in useful ways to repair many tissues, dividing limitlessly for therapeutic purposes. When a stem cell divides, each new cell has the potential either to remain a stem cell or to differentiate into more specialized tissue, such as nerve, pancreas, bone marrow, or unique blood components. Initially

An average of 16 people die in Europe each day without getting the organ they need to survive. 22 people die each day in the United States without getting the organ they need, too. All of these people who die are waiting for organs such like a liver, heart, and other organs that will help keep them alive. The scientists looked at the statistics and wanted to start to develop new organs and body parts to save the patients that are waiting for them. The scientists thought they could start by growing them in a laboratory and make them out of stem cells. They have been struggling with the development of the organs and the progress has been slowed. Other scientists have another theory in how to create a fully functioning organ. They think that everyone should let nature take over and let evolutions happen. Evolutions has helped cells adapt to outside environments and turned our cells into complex molecules that help us survive. The scientists also think that they could use an animal's’ kidney, liver, lungs, heart, and other organs that are useful to keep ourselves alive. Those organs can come from animals, like pigs, because they have somewhat the same kind of organs we have. The only problem that can occur during the operation is that, when you use transfer the heart from a pig, or another animal, our immune system will reject the transplant. People who have been studying about growing human

The reason stem cells are such a big breakthrough in medical technology is that they are cells that have the remarkable ability to grow into just about any cell in the body (Introduction n. pag). In fact, stem cells that remain in the human body after birth “serve as a sort of internal repair system,” in many tissues and organs (Basics n. pag). This is an extremely efficient way of healing since stem cells can become

In the past, the only way to replace diminished cells, tissues, and organs was from organ transplantation. An organ donor was needed, and the tissues would be surgically removed from the donated body and placed into the recipient. Due to the current research being conducted, it is believed that tissue engineering and organ printing can contribute to the process of improving and saving lives.

Because of stem cells regenerative qualities, many scientists hypothesize that eventually we can use stem cells on a large scale to assist us to regenerate damaged tissue within the body especially when transitioning organ donations, or prosthetics into an individual, ultimately making it a safer practice.

IV Thesis: Instead of waiting on a list to get an organ transplant, bio-medical engineers can grow an organ using your own cells. This can benefit the medical world more than any other alternative available. V. Preview of Main Points: Today I am going to teach you about the growing of organs. I’ll tell you the early history, the process, and the benefits. Body I. Current History of Growing Organs A.

In 2011, Professor Susmita Bose, of Washington State University, modified a ProMetal 3D printer to bind chemicals to a ceramic powder, creating intricate scaffolds that promote the growth of bone in any shape. Prof. Bose’s goal is to, one day, be able to implant the bone scaffold with bone growth factors in such a way that the implant is dissolved by natural bone material in even load-bearing bone structures.

In the future, the technology will be widely accepted since it can be used to create complete organ, to test newly developed drugs on manufactured cells instead of animals and human cell, to imprint cells directly onto a human body, thus reducing the wait time for organ transplantation, and save time and cost associated with drug research. An absolutely favorable position of customized organs is designing organs utilizing a patient 's own particular cells. With this methodology, there would be no issues with dismissal, and patients wouldn 't need to take the powerful anti-rejection medications that are presently required (Cooper-White, 2015). According to the Organovo company, the formation of a suitable liver is a crunch second for the bio-printing and drug industry since it demonstrates 3D printed tissue can be preserved successfully for a sufficient time to test the impacts of medications on it or insert it in a human body where it can further mature (Mearian,2013).

 Many transplant candidates die while waiting for an organ, whether it be a heart, lung, kidney or liver.  Yes, it is true that thousands of people are saved each year by organ transplantation, yet even more die each year waiting while their organs shut down.  "In perhaps the most dramatic example, the American Heart Association reports that only 2,300 of 40,000 Americans who needed a new heart in 1997 got one." (Mikos and Mooney 2).  The new strategy which seems promising is the development of what Dr. David J. Mooney of the University of Michigan and Dr. Antonios G. Mikos of the M.D. Anderson Cancer Center in Houston call "neo-organs." (3).  In one aspiring procedure, the patient receives cells that have been harvested previously and comprised into 3-dimensional molds of biodegradable polymers, such as those used to make dissolvable

The medical advances of donor organs and organ transplants have made incredible leaps and bounds in recent decades. Today we can grow stem cells from normal skin tissues, but there are still ethical arguments against the practice of using stem cells for medical procedures. Being able to produce these stem cells from our body tissues is a huge bound forward in medical advances. With that, it is possible to create an organ for the individual who needs it; increasing the organ's viability and ability to be used; ensuring there is no damage or contaminates from donor organs. Now of course even lab-grown organs have its list of ethical backlash that it has faced in recent years. Medical professionals and scientists are already growing organs

Lately, there is an emerging innovation whereby organs are created to form and increase in size by a process of inorganic accretion, from the patient’s cell. This field of medicine is known as the regenerative medicine. In addition to this, there are basically various types of regenerative medical