This, in the words of the technomage Elric, is one of those “greater miracles than the burning bush.”
Mother-of-two becomes first transplant patient to receive an organ grown to order in a laboratory
A 30-year-old Spanish woman has made medical history by becoming the first patient to receive a whole organ transplant grown using her own cells.
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Claudia Castillo, who lives in Barcelona, underwent the operation to replace her windpipe after tuberculosis had left her with a collapsed lung and unable to breathe.
…Doctors overcame the problem of rejection by taking her own stem cells to grow the replacement organ, using a donor trachea (lower windpipe) to provide the mechanical framework. Blood tests have shown no sign of rejection months after the surgery was complete.
Oh, HELL YEAH!!! While it makes certain aspects of science fiction obsolete (Larry Niven’s organleggers are out of a job), it makes other aspects of science fiction tantalisingly near. You heart has crapped out? Get a new one. One that’s young, healthy, and YOURS. No need for someone else to die to get a donor heart; no need for drugs with unpleasant side effects to deal with rejection. Schmoes like me with diabetes? Get a new pancreas! Hell, get two! Then go to town with the ice cream and cookies!
Simple organs will of course be the first up. This, after all, is “just” a windpipe. But I suspect the heart would be one of those realtively simpel early organs. Eventually, limbs will be replaceable.
The cosmetic surgery industry will likely be an early adopter. Boob jobs will be a matter of installing extra blobs of a womans own breast matter, not bags of saltwater or globs of industrial goo. Junk’s too small? Hell, let’s grow you a bigger one (although hooking up all the nerves might be a challenge). Had to have a hysterectomy due to cancer or some such? New womb, coming right up. A possibility would be to grow all-new *ovaries,* complete with eggs.
Cloned hair follicles ready for transplant will make somebody a freakin’ billionaire.
Note also that this neatly avoids some of the controversy around stem cells. What people seem to bitch the most about are embryonic stem cells… cells taken from aborted fetuses (fetii?). But while fetal stem cells can become anything, these stem cells are not *your* cells. Thus rejection remains a perpetual problem. On the other hand, if stem cells can be extracted from *you* (as I understand it, the best way to do this is to take some cells from your gut and tinker with them slightly, resetting them as stem cells), then whatever grows from them is actually you. And thus, no rejection. As a consequence, embryonic stem cell research and utilization becomes less and less relevant.
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