I mentioned in class about a scientist who had developed a skin gun that can be used on burn patients. Here is the video clip from national geographic.
Dr. Mao (affiliated with Columbia University) has devised a scaffolding that can be implanted into a patients mouth and with the help of stem cells can regrow a missing tooth.
A research team at Karolinska Institutet has now managed to produce human stem cells entirely without the use of other cells or substances from animals. Instead they are cultured on a matrix of a single human protein: laminin-511.
Stem cell research isn't as controversial anymore because the cells that are used now do not have to be from fetuses. However any advances in science are going to help us.
this is interesting because there not the usual stem cell their regular cells that are modified to reproduce this could be a way of avoiding the argument against stem cell research that says that these cell are living thing and should not be experimented on.
This is really cool and I can see a lot of good coming out of this. However we need to make sure we don't end up just trying to use the technology in a negative way.
I'm going to be completely honest with you all when I say that the cloned lung freaks me out entirely. I think that it is disgusting that they are growing a human ear on a mouse. Although it is absolutely remarkable that we are able to reproduce actual human organs in general, I don't agree with using animals as test subjects at all...
It is possible to have this scientific research become corporate and/or monopolized. A company that grows organs could charge ridiculous amounts for a body part just because they can. Also if we can replace our organs like they're no big deal then its possible for people to take advantage of that. It could be possible to have people smoking their lungs away just because they know they can. I'm not saying its going to happen and I'm definitely not saying that cloning our organs is a bad thing, its just we need to be careful.
There is something he said harvest stem cells at a young age to use in an older you or someone that is a match to you. Going off the idea the older someone is the more possibility for mutations makes me think how if an older person donates to a younger person wouldn't that do more harm then good?
It would stand to reason that if the older you get the more mutations you develop in your blood/marrow, that if an older donor were to donate "mutated" marrow to a younger recipient the result would probably be non-copacetic. But I believe that it also depends on the type of transplantation that is used, peripheral or autologous, as Applebaum addresses on page 145: http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/05/100531082905.htm
