Jun 4, 2015 05:25 PM
Scientists at the Massachusetts General Hospital report that they have successfully grown a rat forelimb, complete with functional musculature, circulatory system and wrist joints that flex when electrically stimulated.
http://www.foxnews.com/health/2015/06/04...rown-limb/
They say that their technique should work with primate limbs too, hopefully including human arms and legs. That would allow hospitals to grow replacement arms and legs for people who have lost limbs, using those people's own cells, eliminating the need to take immuno-suppressive drugs for life as with conventional transplants.
The largest problem remaining is finding some way to splice the lab-grown limb's nerves into the nervous system of the recipient, so that he/she can feel and move it.
This is a very impressive development in my opinion. It illustrates the fundamental advances in developmental biology that are being made.
http://www.foxnews.com/health/2015/06/04...rown-limb/
They say that their technique should work with primate limbs too, hopefully including human arms and legs. That would allow hospitals to grow replacement arms and legs for people who have lost limbs, using those people's own cells, eliminating the need to take immuno-suppressive drugs for life as with conventional transplants.
The largest problem remaining is finding some way to splice the lab-grown limb's nerves into the nervous system of the recipient, so that he/she can feel and move it.
This is a very impressive development in my opinion. It illustrates the fundamental advances in developmental biology that are being made.