Surgeon creates new kidney on TED stage

I wasn't going to say hello until my Mendel was complete. So pretend this isn't me until I'm done. However came across this article and thought I'd share.

[www.physorg.com]

hmm - When I read this I thought 'No Way!!. This must be a scam or hoax'

Reading the comments further down indicates the article is flawed and totally inaccurate. A kidney shaped object was printed. NOT a functional kidney. It was a talk on what may be many years in the future.

Read this to confirm the media reports are rubbish to put it mildly.

It is a shame though, since if this was true then there would be thousands of people who's quality of life would be radically improved.

One day I do think this will be achieved.

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 03/07/2011 01:13PM by AgeingHippy.

Kind of freaked me out when I heard about it, because I've never heard of the guy and this is my area of research.
We have proven that we can print working kidney cells, working blood vessels, and functioning nerve clusters, but
the push is on to be able to get them all printed together into a working organ. Maybe in another decade we will
be there.

"working blood vessels" ...... could you elaborate more on this??

may be I've missed something on PubMed?

tx

"working blood vessels"
A printed blood vessel made up of endothelia cells, polysaccharides, and connective tissues that are used as
replacement blood vessels for bypass surgury.
Clinical trials are already in progress in a third world country on select critical patients that will die without
a bypass and cannot afford one.

And we have published very, very little about it in order to protect the technique.

do you use a Envisiontec bioprinter to make that?

what is the smallest diameter vessel you have printed so far?

...from my point of view the most difficult part is to find the way to print precapillary vessels and arrange a venous drainage...

also there is a huge technical chalenge for surgeons to connect this flabby construct to existing tubings without clodging and ruptures.

We use a cell printer that I designed.

The smallest blood vessel that we've done was 1/16" I.D. Below that value the
vessels started closing in on themselves with cell growth.

For connecting the printed vessels into existing vessels we flare the end of our
vessels and add ringlets to make it easier to sew them in. It's pretty much the
same way polyester replacement vessels are designed.