There is no doubt that science has made many amazing breakthroughs in the last 100 years. This is especially true for medicine and bioengineering. From life-saving vaccines to a revolutionary surgical operation, the great science improves our quality of life. To come up with new solutions to age-old problems, progress is needed scientists. Behind every medical discovery is a lab full of awesome ideas. Sometimes these experiments raise ethical questions. But more often only lead to interesting solutions to annoying problems.
What decision could be more sophisticated than growing something in a lab from scratch? Here is a list of ten incredible lab-grown pieces, assembled Listverse. You have never seen!
Pork bones
In 2016, U.S. scientists have successfully implanted lab created fourteen bones adult mini-pigs of Yucatan. None of the pigs did not reject the new organs after surgery. Quite the opposite. Blood vessels lab-grown bones discreetly integrated into the existing circulation system of pigs.
How is this even possible?
First, scientists have scanned the jaw bones of pigs and made maps of their structures. Then created the appropriate cell of the forest of cow bones. In these structures introduced stem cells of pigs and filled with a nutrient-rich solution. The result was a fully functional living bone.
Rat limb
Scientists at the Massachusetts hospital made the front pages of Newspapers when, in 2015 raised the whole front paw of rats in the laboratory. This was the first successful project of its kind in the world.
Was supervised by Dr. Harold Ott, also head of the Laboratory of engineering and regeneration of organs Ott. In just 16 days, the experiment led to the creation of muscular tissue. Here’s how they did it.
Dr. Ott and his team took a live rat limb and removed all its cells. This process is called decellularization. As only living cells were removed, the scientists were left alone with the protein frame for the limbs.
Then they filled the structure with living cells that formed muscle tissue and blood cells in just a few weeks. To test the functionality of lab-grown limbs, the group applied a weak electrical current to the muscle tissue.
The result? Muscles in the limbs reduced just as if it was a normal, grown in bodies.
Burgers
The first lab-grown Burger, codenamed “smaso” (schmeat) appeared in London in 2013. It was created in the Netherlands, Dr. mark Post, Professor of vascular physiology. His goal was to play meat “does not cause suffering to animals and does not harm the environment”, in contrast to traditional sources of meat. The project took 5 years and $ 325,000.
It was after the success of the Post started the hype on the subject of creating laboratory meat. Memphis Mear, a startup from San Francisco, created a laboratory meatballs in 2016. Also raised chicken drumsticks – the first in the world.
However unlikely lab-grown meat will be available to the General public until 2021.
Human-pig embryo
A group of scientists from Spain and La JOLLA, California, the Salk Institute, have successfully grown human cells in the fetal pig. The purpose of the study was to eventually grow entire human organs to be used for transplantation inside other animals. Scientists from the Salk has raised several organs of the rat inside of mouse embryos. But with the latest study raised the inevitable ethical questions.
In 2015, the United States stopped funding studies of interspecific chimeras for taxpayers ‘ money. In genetics a Chimera is a natural phenomenon when one organism has two or more different sets of DNA.
But interspecies Chimera contains DNA from two or more kinds. This raises concerns about whether pigs or other animals implanted with human cells, to develop the functions of the human brain.
Juan Carlos Izpisua Belmonte and his team have stated that it aims “to test the ability to focus on the cells in certain tissues, while avoiding any contribution to the brain, sperm or the egg”.
Mouse sperm
In 2016, scientists from the Institute of Zoology of the Chinese Academy of Sciences have created viable mouse sperm from stem cells. To do this, they extracted stem cells from mice and injected them into testicular cells of newborn mice.
Qi Zhou and Xiao-Yang Zhao, who conducted the experiment, also put stem cells in multiple chemical substances involved in the development of sperm. Among them was testosterone, the hormone that causes growth of the follicle, causing the growth hormone from the pituitary gland.
Two weeks later, scientists got a fully functional sperm cells. They implanted the sperm is alive the egg and the zygote transferred to female mice. In the experiment, was born nine mice, some of them continued their own offspring. Although the insemination process was not as effective as artificial insemination using natural sperm (3% success compared to 9%), this study gives great hope for the future infertility treatment.
Blood stem cells
Two different teams of scientists have developed an innovative approach to creating blood stem cells. One group was from the Boston children’s hospital under the direction of George Daly. They started with human skin cells and “reprogrammed” them to become induced pluripotent stem cells. IPS cell is artificially created versatile stem cell.
The team then Daley introduced into IPS cells transcription factors that represent genes that are designed to control other genes. After that, the modified IPS cells were implanted in mice for further development. (If you remember, did those mice interspecific chimeras).
After 12 weeks, these scientists have created only a precursor of blood stem cells. But the second team managed to go further.
Medical College Weill Cornell Shaheen of Rafi and his team missed the creation of IPS. Instead, they took cells from blood vessels in adult mice and injected them with four transcription factor. Then they moved the cells in Petri dishes, equipped to recreate the environment of a blood vessel of a person.
These cells transformed into blood stem cells. Stem cells from this experiment were so powerful that it completely cured a group of mice suffering from low number of blood cells due to radiation therapy.
Apple ears
In 2016, the canadian biophysicist Andrew Pelling and his team from the University of Ottawa have successfully grown human tissue using apples. Using the method of decellularization they removed the existing Apple cells and was left with a cellular “scaffolding”. However, this cellulose gives the apples their juicy crunch.
Pelling and his team carved a slice of Apple in the shape of an ear and put in a human cells. Cells filled structure and created the auricle (external part of the ear).
Why this experiment? To create cheaper implants. According to Pelling, with its laboratory material is also less fuss than with conventional biological materials, which often take in animals or dead bodies. His method is also not limited to apples. He is trying to play their creations on the petals of flowers and other vegetables.
Penis rabbit
In 2008, Dr. Anthony Atala of the Institute for regenerative medicine Wake forest was forced to mate a group of rabbits. But this was no ordinary group of rabbits. All the males were lab-grown penises. This idea Atala nurtured and developed since 1992.
12 created in the laboratory of penises, all allowed the rabbits to mate. Eight rabbits successfully ejaculated, and four had offspring.
By 2014, Atala and his team have created six human penises that are hoping to get FDA approval to transplant people. The scientists exposed lab-grown organs rigorously tested using the machine, tensile and compressive them to ensure that they will withstand the daily load.
A group of scientists has also set up the machine to pump fluid in the organs and lead to erection. As of 2017 transplantation of these organs have not yet been approved, but still ahead.
Vagina
Dr. Anthony Atala and his team have also raised a human vagina in his laboratory. These then implanted four Teens in Mexico that have resulted in a rare deviation were born without them.
To create these organs, Atala took a small skin sample from each of the girls. Then they created a biodegradable forests and implemented them in the cells grown on the basis of tissue samples.
The first of these operations was conducted in 2005. Follow-up of women did not reveal long-term complications of surgery. All four women reported normal sexual functioning. However, only two women have uterine. It is not clear whether the other two to make children.
Brain balls
Sergiu Pasca from Stanford University have grown mini-brain within two years. Scientists call it cerebral organoidom. Being only 4 mm in diameter, this little lump of tissue the human brain was grown in a lab from stem cells. Taking the right hormones, scientists were able to get tissue to grow in a structure that almost completely mimics the part of the brain.
And, you know, what was the biggest difference between the normal part and its miniature version?
Lab-grown brains had no blood vessels or white blood cells and did not follow the typical stages of neurological development. Instead, they continued to Mature equivalent of the first trimester of human development.
In the brain are non-neuronal cells called astrocytes, which reach full maturity in a lab organelles. Astrocytes are the primary cells that create and save connections between neurons as needed. They also create a connection with the blood vessels leading to the brain and from it, and play an important role in the perception of injury.
10 amazing things grown in a lab
Ilya Hel