We were just assigned an assignment in class to look and research more about the youtube video Tissue Engineering: New approaches and advancements. I have to say, this video is amazing! What scientists are actually doing is looking into creating artificial organs for the human body! People are dying because they cant get organs from donors quick enough, and with this new scientific breakthrough, that might not be an issue anymore. Scientists actually took a lab rat and injected cells to where an ear was actually growing on its back! it was so wild because it had cartilage growing into its back to form the ear as well. I had never imagined the world of science was so complex and technologically advanced! Another example was a woman named Claudia. She had tuberculosis and she was having a very difficult time breathing. What scientists did was get a trachea from a human cadaver, disinfect it, and insert cells from Claudia's own body into this new trachea. This was amazing because not only did she get to go home 4 days after, but she never has had a problem breathing since! She also doesn't have to worry about her body rejecting the surgery since she has the cadavers trachea embedded into her body. I have done research on this scientific topic, and the most useful one was an article from http://www.annualreviews.org/doi/abs/10.1146/annurev-chembioeng-061010-114257. This article said the tissue engineering is mainly focused on skin replacement and cartilage repair right now, but is gradually growing into a breakthrough for organ engineering! The skin and cartilage engineering now will help wounded soldiers and thousands of people right now! The most amazing thing I have ever heard of was 3-D printing. The scientists actually took a inkjet printer, and injected cells into the ink cartridge. The scary part of this process is they are able to print organs, and they function! I am not going into detail about how the scientists do this because I don't think you should just take my word, you need to check this out for yourself! The link is posted below.
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