White House Threatens To Veto Bill Attempting To Gut Net Neutrality, Defang FCC

DailyDirt: Matchmaker, Matchmaker, Make Me A Match...

from the urls-we-dig-up dept

Thu, Apr 14th 2016 5:00pm — Michael Ho

Sometimes extending a person's life requires an organ transplant, but it's not exactly easy to find a replacement organ -- especially when donors don't have spares. Medicine is getting better at growing some replacements, so maybe someday patients won't need to rely on other people dying to get a heart, liver, pancreas, etc.

The 2012 Nobel prize for economics went to Alvin Roth and Lloyd Shapley for their work on matchmaking solutions that have practical applications in finding kidney donors and pairing medical students with training programs. The organ donor marketplace has benefited greatly from marketplaces that don't depend on prices -- but still create fair exchanges. [url]
Why do some organs like kidneys and lungs come in pairs, but others like hearts and livers don't? If you're expecting a real answer to this question (other than dual organs are advantageous for survival in some cases and not in others), keep waiting, but it's interesting to know that hearts in some animals, like amphibians, could be doubled, but they merge to form a single heart. [url]
Researchers are growing mini-organs, aka organoids, from stem cells -- small brains, eyes, livers and more. These organoid banks for semi-developed body parts could provide extremely good testing environments for pharmaceuticals and medical treatments, replacing lab rats or healthy volunteers. [url]

After you've finished checking out those links, take a look at our Daily Deals for cool gadgets and other awesome stuff.

Thank you for reading this Techdirt post. With so many things competing for everyone’s attention these days, we really appreciate you giving us your time. We work hard every day to put quality content out there for our community.

Techdirt is one of the few remaining truly independent media outlets. We do not have a giant corporation behind us, and we rely heavily on our community to support us, in an age when advertisers are increasingly uninterested in sponsoring small, independent sites — especially a site like ours that is unwilling to pull punches in its reporting and analysis.

While other websites have resorted to paywalls, registration requirements, and increasingly annoying/intrusive advertising, we have always kept Techdirt open and available to anyone. But in order to continue doing so, we need your support. We offer a variety of ways for our readers to support us, from direct donations to special subscriptions and cool merchandise — and every little bit helps. Thank you.

–The Techdirt Team

Filed Under: alvin roth, lloyd shapley, medicine, organ donation, organ transplant, organoids, stem cells

16 Comments

If you liked this post, you may also be interested in...

Reader Comments

Subscribe: RSS

View by: Time | Thread

JoeCool (profile), 14 Apr 2016 @ 6:20pm

Hmm
It's not too hard to guess at why you only have one heart. It's a pump and a circulatory system. If you had TWO pumps, odds are good one would be stronger than the other. A stronger pump means a possibility of backflow on the weaker pump, and backflow on blood means blood clots, which means death. So having two hearts means an elevated chance at embolisms and less chance of surviving.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Anonymous Coward, 14 Apr 2016 @ 6:26pm

Re: Hmm
Except...

http://mentalfloss.com/article/52337/3-creatures-more-one-heart
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Lawrence D’Oliveiro, 14 Apr 2016 @ 7:13pm

Re: It's not too hard to guess at why you only have one heart
Be careful of the assumption that a biological system is in any way intelligently designed.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Fiddler on my roof, 14 Apr 2016 @ 7:25pm

Match box fire
Match Maker, Match Maker Make me a match find me a Fire, catch me a catch Match maker Match maker, look though your leak, and find me the perfect match

FIRE ... I Bring you to BURN...
[ link to this | view in thread ]
klaus (profile), 15 Apr 2016 @ 12:23am

Re: Hmm
Would Chev Chelios
Count as having two tickers?
Well, Doctor Who then?
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Ninja (profile), 15 Apr 2016 @ 5:15am

Re: Hmm
I'm no doctor here but I can assure you that it does not happen with mechanical pumps if properly installed. You can go for added pressure or added flow depending if you install them in series or in parallel. And even then you can add valves to prevent backflow depending on your needs.

So if there is backflow or something then the setup isn't correct.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
JoeCool (profile), 15 Apr 2016 @ 10:20am

Re: Re: Hmm
3 out of how many thousands? Hmm? Thought so.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
JoeCool (profile), 15 Apr 2016 @ 10:25am

Re: Re: Hmm
Exactly my point. We can tailor a mechanical system with multiple pumps by controlling everything about the system. But who or what is controlling biological systems so finely that they can prevent such problems? I doubt evolution works on such small scales as to alleviate problems, and I don't know about you, but no "higher power" has ever intervened in the lives of anyone I know.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
nasch (profile), 15 Apr 2016 @ 12:53pm

Re: Re: Re: Hmm
I doubt evolution works on such small scales as to alleviate problems,

What makes you say that? It works on a small enough scale to make geckos' feet stick to things, and that's a lot smaller than a heart.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Anonymous Coward, 15 Apr 2016 @ 2:30pm

Re: Re: Hmm
Top banana! Chev Chelios IS that balls out urban ranger!!! The Staph at that zenith before he started shagging RHW, going to Kew Gardens and being seen at Crufts. Are you doing a poem there Klaus or someting? Wow.

Oh Wait, your not german are you?
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Anonymous Coward, 15 Apr 2016 @ 4:40pm

Re: Re: Re: Hmm
Poem? What? It's called a haiku......
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Anonymous Coward, 15 Apr 2016 @ 4:48pm

Re: Re: Hmm
Chev Chelios, the man with two hearts, only his real one had been snatched by Chinese mooks leaving him with a mechanical battery operated one

That said I can only remember Amy Smart----- can you blame me?
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Anonymous Coward, 15 Apr 2016 @ 5:15pm

Re: Re: Hmm
Haha Bro, got that in one............

Sad fact - do you get that Crank was nearly a decade ago???

Feelin' old man, feelin' old
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Anonymous Coward, 15 Apr 2016 @ 5:30pm

Re: Re: Re: Hmm
Please don't dis the Germans. Just, don't. History man

Let's bask in the light that was Chev Chelios and ponder how he could survive a drop from 30,000 feet and land on a car and survive, then an hour later, after conquering electricity, and multiple kung-fu gangsters, shag Amy Smart in front of 50,000 people at a sports stadium, fight multiple dog owners AND their dog, dodge bullets and survive car crashes, then recover his heart by a roof-top battle from Chinese goons by means of a sex-maniac, drug-addicted, highly unsanitary, struck-off doctor.

How? He's Chev Chelios, that's how.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
JoeCool (profile), 15 Apr 2016 @ 10:29pm

Re: Re: Re: Re: Hmm
Small scale meaning within an organism's lifespan, not size. Evolution takes many generations to work, but you don't have that time to adjust an unbalanced pumping system.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
nasch (profile), 16 Apr 2016 @ 9:20am

Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Hmm
Evolution takes many generations to work, but you don't have that time to adjust an unbalanced pumping system.

I'm not so sure, it seems like there are a lot of systems that would need to be fully in place before an organism could rely on them. Lungs for example. You can't wander around for long on land without lungs, and there's no time to evolve them in a single generation. Yet somehow animals evolved lungs and discarded their gills. I imagine the same sort of process could manage multiple pumps, and apparently it has:

http://mentalfloss.com/article/52337/3-creatures-more-one-heart
[ link to this | view in thread ]