TheBiologySpace.BioBlog

This is truly amazing. The progression of science is incredible, and in the near future, so many lives should be able to be extended.

However, I am a little cautious about what this can roll into. I think it would be awful if, down the road, people started picking out *the perfect genes* and messing with natural reproduction to create an ideal child. I know that sounds far-fetched and irrevelent, but with the strides science is making, it actually could be plausible soon enough. I think that the production of organs is amazing-as long as its kept to solely help those who REALLY need it.

Wow, it’s amazing how fast technology is progressing. I wonder if some day they would even make an artificial human being. I think that the fact that the cells took the shape of the heart provide some good insight into how organs develop and how multicellular organisms evolved. Perhaps the genetic code for a multicellular organism isn’t that complicated after all, and this evidence favors microevolution as opposed to macro.

I don’t believe that any organ transplants should be held back because of moral dilemmas, because I believe that if God didn’t want us to be creating artificial organs, he wouldn’t give us the power to. All that matters is you, not you body – “I think, therefore I am…”
Over the last few weeks, I heard about gas-free cars, artificial eyes for blind people, the first FDA approved weight loss pill (which actually works), and now this. Technology is progressing very fast and shouldn’t be held back due to any dilemmas.

I just have to say OH MY GOODNESS! I can think of two family members of the top of my ead that would benefit from this. The drawback that I can predict is that it is going to take so much times to become mainstream. First it is going to take years to perfect the procedure. Then, it will take forever for insurance companies to recognize the procedure as necessary. They will drag their feet before they actually have to pay for something that could help people. It would be much cheaper to just to take an organ from a cadaver than have to pay for the lab to grow the organ.

I think it is incredible how cells can rebuild the complex and connected beings that we are. Just as when we get a cut, you can see the skin gradually grow back perfectly together from the inside going out. When constructing a building, you start with the inside and the foundation, then build outward and upward to add all the details and structures that will keep the everything together. The idea of placing cells inside of a new habitat, yet one that they can function in and become a part of, is brilliant.

This is soooo crazy to me, and completely boggles my mind. I really think this is a huge break through and whether or not it was a penacillin type mistake or if it was just an amazing idea that someone tried and succeded with. I don’t know, this would mean an incredible deal to people who were waiting for those organ transplants, and people in the battlefield too possible. I don’t know how operations out there work, but I assume that this could be very very useful to them out there in combat circumstances.

Why did the rats not reject the cardiac cells? ‘”Newborn tissue is rich in cells that are more hearty and more tolerant [than adult cells],” says Taylor.’ Do newborn individual’s cells not have receptors, or are they just more easily accepted because they are more tolerant?
If scientists could make this work in humans, perhaps society would accept growing hearts because it is naturally done, just as the body naturally heals itself. They are not creating a heart from scratch, but are just refilling a previously pumping heart.

Interesting. This new procedure for growing organs could work for humans (with years of research and testing). After a while when the procedure is ‘perfected’ I can see it seriously putting dents in waiting lists. Is it ethical? I believe so. Personally I wouldn’t care if a new heart or kidney came from a living person or a dead one. Actually, getting a heart made from a dead person’s organs would be preferred for me. That way a person isn’t at detriment for the rest of their life with only one organ of it’s kind (or dead if it was a heart). The ethics behind it will hopefully work out over the many years before it could get to human testing.

With this new technology, transplant patients would have two options. Both options unfortunately possess a chance of failure because a donated heart could still be rejected while a heart invented in the laboratory would have chance that stem cells may not work. Still having the other option available is better than having to wait again for another heart (I’m not sure what the procedure is for rejected hearts and if the patient still has more time). I’m sure though as technology improves, the risks will be lowered.

I think that this is the most important factor when experimenting with new discoveries like this. If the rat didn’t take the heart and run with it, this would still be cool but wouldn’t have an applicable use.

What an incredible beverage! This is delicious! It opens so many doors to scientists of all kinds I just can’t wait to see what all can be accomplished in the next few years because of this.

Of course there will be complications once in a while (what surgery doesn’t?) and of course people will object to it claiming that scientists shouldn’t “play god.” But when something as amazing as this arises, we would be stupid not to use it or at least research it to no end.

It definitely will make huge strides in transplant organ availability, but as mentioned in paragraph 8, it has the potential to also make huge strides in so many other things. A cure for diabetes and cystic fibrosis? I can’t believe this is finally on the horizon!

These can make great discoveries and help those who are on the wating list for a new heart. Although I do believe this advancement in technonlogy and research will take quite some time before it is effective and perfected to the excatness, but it will be exciting to see this come to a new advancement that i look forward to seeing in the future years for especially those that need this life or death advancement.

I think it is pratical to take the perfectly functioning heart and start over if the chance of the organ being rejected was reduced. As it says in paragraph 6, the heart was functional and was not rejected by rats not related to the source of the original organ. If it can be proven that a person’s body will be less succeptable to reject the good organ then I think the risk would not outweigh the outcome of using this method of creating new organs.

I watched the movie from the researchers at the University of Minnesota, and it showed a them actually doing the experiment. First a solution drained the everything but the cells of the heart. It took a couple of hours and then they adding a neonatal cells back into the heart and in a matter of weeks the heart had grown and was actually beating. I suggest everyone takes a look at this video. I am a visual person and it gives you a more accurate view of what they actually did.

This, like biofuels, has a distinct loss vs. gain dilemma. This is why people are so against this idea. What they don’t realize though is how much higher the gain is than the loss. They’re not thinking how incredible this research is and how much can be accomplished with it.

I am sure if you want to find controversy anywhere if you want to, but this could save lives. Personally I don’t think any one is making anything, they have cells, and they grow it into a heart, and save someones life, they aren’t playing God or anything. They are just working with the physical body parts, nothing else.

This is an amazing discovery for health medicine and its sad that I can see many people fighting it due to the bioethical dilemma of playing God. However, I believe Prashi’s right in that using existing cells to grow a heart isn’t transcending into God’s territory; It’s using the brain he gave us to save lives.

there will always be delemia with any scientific discoveries, take the discovery of the world being round, it was hailed as blasphamy. and plus there will always be 10,000 critics for one actual contributer. Although this is a cool procedure, it doesn’t alleveiate the fact that someone still has to die. Now if they were to be able to fabricate many hearts from one heart that would seem to me more practical. there is always a risk for failure so why waste all the muscle from that heart, but if there was a procedure were you can take the cells of those heart, the cariac muscle, and produce a heart then maybe it make a serious contribution, but right now i think it might be too new of a process.

The idea that Scientists are playing God because they can grow a heart or any kind of organ that can potentially save a person’s life is ridiculous at best. They aren’t making a heart out of nothing, all they are doing is growing a heart out of cells that are already present. And even if the scientists were somehow playing God, whats the big deal, it saves lives which is the only real thing that matters with this research. Only major detail that needs any adressing is the fact that it once again saves lives, all the other stuff about how its not natural should just be ignored.