X-Message-Number: 11269
Date: Mon, 15 Feb 1999 10:49:54 -0500
From: "Stephen W. Bridge" <>
Subject: More on Pig bladders

To CryoNet
From Steve Bridge
February 15, 1999
 
That story on the "artificial" pig bladders is more interesting than you
might think.  The research is in the February issue of the journal *Nature
Biotechnology*.  This is a follow-up on the work done by Dr. Anthony Atala
of the Harvard Medical School and Children's Hospital of Boston.  These
are more-or-less cloned bladders, not by using direct DNA manipulation or
nucleus-switching but by using a few cells of bladder tissue and inducing
them to grow into an entire useful organ on a mold.  The mold dissolves a
few weeks after implantation.  This research was originally announced a
week or two after the cloning of "Dolly"; but was missed by most of the
media in the hysteria to condemn cloning.  Regrowing organs, an
immediately practical offshoot of the cloning and cell biology research,
was ignored.
 
This is the first step in growing replacement organs from your own tissue,
which will eventually replace cadaver transplants and which might supply
your defrosted self with replacement parts.  I suspect other more powerful
technologies will actually be used for repairing suspension patients; but
this is one more bit of evidence of the medical techniques that we can
already see will be possible.  It can used as another selling point for
life span extension and suspension repair in your talks to friends and
family today.  And it might save your life in the next decade.
 
Again, the url for the AP article is:
http://www.msnbc.com/news/236638.asp
 
I don't know if the full research paper is on-line anywhere yet.
 
Steve Bridge

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