MOLECULAR AND CELLULAR MEDICINE ADVANCES = ETERNAL YOUTH?

Part V. Tissue Engineering Of all the procedures, gadgets and living parts been explored with the aim of extending human life, the one that I think has the most immediate promising future is provided by the exciting new field of Tissue Engineering.

Conceptually the goal pursued by tissue engineers is very simple. Take a few cells from the person whose organ needs to be repaired or replaced and reproduce them in the lab on a biodegradable scaffold with the appropriate shape. While the cells reproduce, that is, the tissue grows, the scaffold is dissolved and you will end up with a new organ ready to be implanted in the patient.

More than five years ago a team of tissue engineers leaded by brothers Charles and Joseph Vacanti; Charles from the University of Massachusetts at Worcester and Joseph from the Children’s Hospital of the Harvard Medical School, made an incredible breakthrough when they probably saved the life of a 12 years old boy from Massachusetts. Due to a genetic defect, the boy’s chest cartilage did not develop appropriately, which meant that, his heart was practically out there in the open endangering his life. To solve this problem, they took a few the cells from the tip of his underdeveloped cartilage and seeded them onto a synthetic biodegradable matrix that had been molded to his chest. After the addition of some especial proteins called growth factors, it was incubated under the appropriate conditions for several weeks until a new cartilage grew. With an especial permit from the FDA they implanted it in the boy. Today, six years later, he has a normal looking chest that grows with him. This extraordinary feat was featured in article in Business Week.

A few years later, again the Vacanti brothers made headlines when they used a biodegradable template to grow a human ear, which was later implanted in the back of nude mouse, that is, is one whose immune system has been knocked out.

And in 1998 they grew in the lab to the correct size and dimensions the new bone of the thumb for a factory worker that had accidentally lost his. It has already been grafted on and although he cannot bend it, the Vacanti team hopes that the addition of growth and specialization factors will encourage the regeneration of the joint, cartilage and nerves. In this case, they used sea coral as template, because it shapes the bone as it regrows, while slowly dissolving before eventually disappearing entirely.

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