Grow Your Own Replacement Parts
CBS News looks at the state of tissue engineering: "From blood vessels to muscle tissue, Atala and his team at Wake Forest University believe that in theory anything inside the body can be grown outside the body ... And it's real: They've made 18 different types of tissue so far. ... In a clinical trial at Thomas Jefferson Hospital in Philadelphia, a patient got a bladder transplant - with a new bladder grown from her own cells. ... the company also plans to mass-produce blood vessels and kidneys ... When people ask me 'what do you do,' we grow tissues and organs. We are making body parts that we can implant right back into patients ... Scientists believe every part of the body has cells capable of regeneration - all researchers need to do is isolate those cells and coax them to grow. ... What's coming from this technology is a future of highly personal, mail-order medicine, where in order to cure your disease, your doctor will order you a replacement organ or body part and it will be custom made for you, using your own cells. ... In regenerative medicine, I think it is similar to the semiconductor industry of the 1980s. You don't know where its going to go, but you know its big."
Link: http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2008/02/06/eveningnews/main3799803.shtml