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

from the urls-we-dig-up dept

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.

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

DailyDirt: Making Backups Of Your Organs

from the urls-we-dig-up dept

Organ transplant procedures are becoming amazingly complex and reliable. Still, it's a good idea to try to keep your original equipment in good working order. But if you do start having an organ fail on you, it's nice to know there are some options -- and the options are getting better. Here are just a few advances in getting donor organs that don't necessarily involve other people dying.

• Tens of thousands of people are on a waiting list for a kidney transplant because it's not easy to find a matching donor. About 3,000 new patients are added to the list (in the US alone) each month, but a new procedure called desensitization could make organ rejection far less common -- and improve the odds for people looking for a kidney transplant. This method could also be suitable for other organ transplants, but it requires a living donor -- so it's a bit easier to find "spare" kidneys than, say, livers. [url]
• Roughly 4,000 patients in the US are waiting for a heart transplant. Growing a heart from stem cells in a lab might be possible someday, and researchers have gotten a tiny step closer to doing so. It's just not easy to grow tens of billions of cells into a functioning adult heart -- unless you're a baby. [url]
• There are "farms" already trying to grow human tissue inside pigs and sheep -- perhaps developing a way to grow human hearts, kidneys, livers or any other organ on demand. These "human-animal chimeras" aren't being funded with federal NIH funds, but there are other agencies and research groups working on "humanized" animals. Lab mice have been successfully altered to grow a rat pancreas, so it's likely that other animals should be able to grow viable human organs as well. [url]

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

Filed Under: biotech, chimerism, health, hearts, kidneys, medicine, organ transplant, stem cells, xenotransplantation

DailyDirt: Growing Backup Organs

from the urls-we-dig-up dept

Medical science has advanced quite a bit with organ transplants, but there's still the problem of matching donors and the "availability" of organs. Obviously, there are some ethical issues with buying/selling human organs, but getting organs from non-human mammals has its own set of problems, too. The engineering challenges are slowly being solved, and we might be able to grow backup organs in a few years. Maybe.

• Pigs have long been a leading candidate for growing replacement human organs, despite concerns over genetic differences, disease transmission and organ rejection. Still, researchers have edited over 60 genes in some pig embryos to make these animals more compatible in human transplant recipients. Don't go destroying your liver just yet, though; it'll be a while before these genetically engineered pigs are ready to donate their organs safely to people. [url]
• Primitive human kidneys have been grown from stem cells in a lab -- possibly leading to growing more mature kidneys for organ transplants someday. The "organoids" that have been grown so far have some, but not all, of the key features that a full kidney has. So this development is still pretty far from preventing people from needing dialysis, but it could be useful for studying how kidneys react to new drugs and help researchers understand how other complex organs might be grown from stem cells. [url]
• Xenotransplantation isn't a new idea, but getting organs from different species to avoid rejection is still a significant challenge. Genetically modified pigs have been used as organ donors for baboons with encouraging results: a baboon lived for 2.5 years with a pig heart implant, another baboon lived 4 months with a "life-sustaining" pig kidney. [url]

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

Filed Under: biotech, crispr, gene editing, gmo, kidneys, medicine, organ transplant, organoids, stem cells, xenotransplantation

DailyDirt: Frankenstein Was The Doctor, Not The Monster...

from the urls-we-dig-up dept

Medicine is often a somewhat gruesome practice. To treat some injuries/diseases, sometimes you need to perform some extreme surgeries. It's not always pretty. However, some surgeons are working on unusual procedures that sound a bit more like Frankenstein than modern medicine. Transplants from animals, whole head transplants -- if these procedures actually work, doctors could extend the lifespans of people in a way that brings up more and more questions about the quality of a person's life. These operations are far from perfected now, but so were a lot of surgeries not too long ago.

• Some unconventional surgeons say a human head transplant will be possible in the near future. This sounds like a sci-fi movie -- because there is a movie coming out about transferring minds (not heads). The first real patient could be Valery Spiridonov -- a man with Werdnig-Hoffman disease -- who still needs a donor body and a medical facility to support the operation. [url]
• Xenotransplantations have been attempted for over a century, and there are still lots of problems with implanting an animal organ into a human body. Beyond the animal rights protests, the odds of success for an organ transplant are hindered by immune system rejection responses and possible disease transmission problems. Genetically engineering an animal for better results might be a promising approach, but the technology to grow organs might catch up. [url]
• Genetically modified piglet hearts have survived in the body of a baboon (in its abdomen) for more than a year now. The piglet hearts were designed to minimize organ rejection, and the next step is to try to replace a baboon heart with one of these pig hearts. [url]

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

Filed Under: frankenstein, head transplant, life extension, medicine, organ transplant, valery spiridonov, werdnig-hoffman disease, xenotransplantation

DailyDirt: No More Urban Legends Of Waking Up In A Bathtub Without Your Kidneys...

from the urls-we-dig-up dept

There are plenty of ethical issues with organ transplants and how to handle the undersupply of donors. Hopefully, medical science is getting advanced enough to grow organs and eliminate the shortage of organs for patients who need them. Here are just a few stories about organs in modern medicine.

• A 6-way paired kidney transplant operation took 2 days and a handful of surgeons to complete. Software called MatchGrid identifies chains of donors and recipients that can optimize organ compatibility and significantly shorten the recipient wait list. [url]
• Researchers have grown mini-stomachs from stem cells -- technically, just the lower end of the stomach, but still. Petri-dish stomachs could help in learning how to prevent certain stomach cancers and potentially lead to stomach patches for ulcers. [url]
• Are there really vestigial organs in your body? Living without a gall bladder or appendix is not uncommon, but who gets these organs removed as a precaution? (Answer: Antarctic explorers and perhaps some astronauts.) [url]

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

Filed Under: appendix, cancer, gall bladder, health, kidneys, matchgrid, organ, organ transplant, regeneration, stem cells, stomach, ulcer

DailyDirt: Three Blind Mice... Cured Someday?

from the urls-we-dig-up dept

An estimated 285 million people (worldwide) have some blindness or visual impairment. About 43% of those visually impaired around the world are people who need glasses but don't have them. However, there are obviously blind people who have more severe vision problems that are more technologically difficult to fix. Some kids with blindness are learning how to echolocate nowadays, but that's a skill that gets harder to learn as a person ages. Here are just a few other ways that might restore vision to people someday.

• A chemical injection into mouse eyes has been shown to make "blind" cells in the retina sensitive to light again. The effects of acrylamide-azobenzene-quaternary ammonium (AAQ) eventually wears off, but it is far less invasive than retinal implants or other procedures. [url]
• Retinal prostheses are being developed, too. However, implants require an invasive surgical procedure, and so far the resolution isn't quite comparable to a Geordi La Forge visor. [url]
• Eye injuries are a serious problem for the military, so doctors are coming up with plausible ways to perform entire eye transplants. The University of California, San Diego School of Medicine has some funding to work on eye transplants and how to regrow cells to mend severed optic nerves. [url]

If you'd like to read more awesome and interesting stuff, check out this unrelated (but not entirely random!) Techdirt post via StumbleUpon.

Filed Under: aaq, blindness, cure, echolocation, eyes, health, low vision, organ transplant, retina, retinal prosthesis, treatments, vision, visual impairment, visually impaired