Lungs rebuilt in lab and transplanted into rats : Not Exactly Rocket Science

Nonetheless, both researchers say that the technique used to actually produce the lung was “careful, well planned and beautifully presented”. Cortiella says that it “shows the importance of using the organ’s own extracellular matrix”, while Nichols notes that it “advances our view of what a bioreactor needs to look like in order to both grow and mature lung tissue”.

And Nichols is particularly excited about the fact that other researchers are making significant headway in engineering a lung. “It is hard to make headway in a field when so few people have tried to engineer a lung,” she says. “Good science does not take place in a vacuum. You need a critical mass to move the field along.”

Lung engineering may not be a competitive field, but it’s clear that similar approaches are being tested for other organs. Just last week, another team from Massachussetts General Hospital achieved the same trick for livers, stripping them down to a scaffold, re-growing them, and transplanting them back into rats. Again, we’re a long way off from the clinic but the fact that progress is being made at all makes this a very exciting time to be alive.

Lungs rebuilt in lab and transplanted into rats : Not Exactly Rocket Science

How to Grow a New Lung | DiscoverMagazine.com

One key is getting rid of the donor's pesky cells, leaving the some critical structures behind.

A group of rats in New Haven, Connecticut, have offered living, breathing proof that scientists are learning how to grow replacements for vital organs. Earlier this year, researchers at Yale University removed the animals’ left lungs, swapping them out for new ones crafted in the lab. Although the rats survived no more than two hours, that was long enough to prove that an engineered lung could exchange gas and keep an animal alive. In a separate project, rats at Massachusetts General Hospital received cultivated livers and survived for up to eight hours before the transplant was removed.

How to Grow a New Lung | DiscoverMagazine.com

Must see video: Bionic Man Has Fully Functional Mechanical Organs:

With working organs and a realistic face, the world’s most high-tech humanoid made his debut in London yesterday and will be a one-man show at the city’s London Science Museum starting tomorrow.

The robot goes by Rex (short for robotic exoskeleton) or Million-Dollar Man (because that’s how much it cost to build him). Rex looks somewhat lifelike in that he has prosthetic hands, feet and a face modeled after a real man. That man is Swiss social psychologist Bertolt Meyer, who himself has a prosthetic hand. Such technology is now becoming more widely available to the general public.

There may be hope for me yet.......

Bionic Man Has Fully Functional Mechanical Organs : 80beats

#66: Synthetic Lung Takes a Breath | DiscoverMagazine.com

#66: Synthetic Lung Takes a Breath
 | DiscoverMagazine.com

3D printer makes an ear, can lungs be next?

3D printer makes an ear, can lungs be next?


Watch This: 3-D Printing an Implantable Ear : 80beats

New techology to create artificial lungs

New techology to create artificial lungs
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Professor Rhodri Williams at Swansea's College of Engineering, and was funded by the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC).


domain-b.com : Researchers develop technology to create artificial lung

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The device resembles a small box with inlet and outlet pipes for blood flow. It is intended to be worn externally to assist breathing for patients with chronic illnesses including chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, emphysema and cystic fibrosis.
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It is also being developed for use to assist recovery of patients following cardiopulmonary surgery and used to keep patients healthier whilst they are waiting for a lung transplant. Helping patients with breathing will enable more transplants to take place, with better matching and improved survival rates.</p>
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new approach to Artificial Lung Tissue

New approach to Artificial Lung Tissue

Researchers Make Super-Realistic Artificial Lung Tissue By Levitating Cells

Traditionally, cell cultures have been made in a 2-D petri dish. Problem is, cells cultured flat don't act quite the same as cells made in 3-D cultures. So instead, researchers from Rice University and Nano3D Biosciences started using magnetic levitation to get a 3-D culture. And now, using that tech, they've arranged four types of cells into super-realistic lung tissue.

This is how the levitation works. Inert, magnetic nanoparticles are inserted into the cells, and researchers can manipulate them by using magnets--in this case, a magnetic "pen." That ability to tinker with the cells opens the door for more complicated cultures. The four-layered replication, of the lung's bronchiole tissue, is made from endothelial cells, smooth muscle cells, fibroblasts, and epithelial cells. Arranging those cells in the same way as lung tissue has never been done before, and the researchers say it's the closest anyone's gotten to real bronchiole tissue.

As for practical applications: since the culture can be manipulated, researchers can better simulate how toxins would enter actual lungs, exposing certain layers to a toxin as they would be in the human body. Those better simulations could eventually lead to better treatments.