The Artificial Heart: Not Just a Pump

sea-maid submitted, created time 2 months 1 week (www.sciam.com)

In the late 1970's, both the medical community and the public were filled with optimism about the possibilities of medical science in general and the artificial heart project in particular. By the 1980's, the pendulum had swung the other way completely. This article is a colorful and well-written treatment of what happened in between to cause this change ...and what is happening now to bring it back.

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Singapore to examine kidney trading

sea-maid submitted, created time 4 months 1 week (news.yahoo.com)

Singapore is considering legalizing kidney trading to help meet demand for kidney transplants, the city-state's health minister said Monday

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Injured vets may regrow body parts

jerry submitted, created time 6 months 4 days (edition.cnn.com)

The news shows salamander-inspired therapy may aid injured vets. A wounded American soldier underwent a history-making procedure that could help him regrow the finger that was lost to a bomb attack in Baghdad last year...

2 comments | Blog It | Email It | Keywords: science and culture stem cells adult stem cells veterans amphibians salamanders organs transplants regenerative medicine amputees amputations

How to print out a blood vessel

sumsung submitted, created time 8 months 1 week (www.nature.com)

A tissue engineering group has succeeded in creating functional blood vessels and cardiac tissue, using a printer that dispenses cells instead of ink. The work, published this month in Tissue Engineering, is among the first to produce functional three-dimensional tissue using a printer, and a milestone on the way to the goal of printing out whole organs.

2 comments | Blog It | Email It | Keywords: heart disease blood vessels tissue engineering organs transplants stem cells microelectronics capillaries cardiac tissue

Building a New Heart From Old Tissue

Ghost heart has a tiny beat

jane2007 submitted, created time 10 months 2 weeks (www.nature.com)

This is a significant research that it will help thousands of people escape form cardiac tissue. Rat hearts, stripped of their cells by detergents, have been used as a scaffold to engineer a bioartificial heart, which can amazingly pump a little like the original organ. One day, it will be used to repair heart damage or even generate new hearts for transplantation.

2 comments | Blog It | Email It | Keywords: heart transplantation cells transplants organ donation organs cardiac tissue cardiovascular heart