Bio-Paper for Printing Organs

An emerging branch of medicine called “organ printing” takes a patient’s own healthy cells and uses a printer, cell-based “bio-ink” and “bio-paper” to create tissue to repair a damaged organ.

A new hydrogel or “bio-paper”,developed by the University of Utah College of Pharmacy, enables printing of organs by layering thin sheets embedded with cells. The cells and liquid hydrogel are put in the printer cartridge and then dropped into three-dimensional, 1-microliter dots that form layers as the hydrogel hardens. The cells form tissue that can be implanted into a damaged organ. Glenn D. Prestwich believes testing will begin on humans in the next year as research pushes to repair damaged organs in real-time.

via Medgadget

Q Machine : One million atom simulation

Researchers at Los Alamos National Laboratory have set a new world’s record by performing the first million-atom computer simulation in biology. Using the “Q Machine� supercomputer, Los Alamos computer scientists have created a molecular simulation of the cell’s protein-making structure, the ribosome. The project, simulating 2.64 million atoms in motion, is more than six times larger than any biological simulations performed to date. [press release]

via Biology News Net

Microscopic Wood Anatomy

The Microscopic Wood Anatomy of Central European species website hosts a giant archive of high resolution images open to the public. The index is a continuation of the book by Schweingruber F.H., 1990: Microscopic Wood Anatomy; Structural variability of stems and twigs in recent and subfossil woods from Central Europe. 3rd edition 1990. Birmensdorf, Eidgenössische Forschungsanstalt WSL.

via Pruned

Self-Assembling Viral Battery

Dr. Angela Belcher and her group at MIT are developing an organic-inorganic hybrid method of growing batteries. By forcing viruses to interact with materials like metals, Dr. Belcher is exploring new materials that are self assembling with a high degree of control based on the chosen DNA sequence. Imagine selecting DNA for any type of material you want the virus to grow. [Discover Article]

via Medgadget | ScienCentral

Dermal Nanotech Display

Robert A. Freitas‘ dermal display concept functions as a medical nanorobot control center to keep one’s health in check. His book, Nanomedicine, Volume I: Basic Capabilities, is the first technical design study of nanotechnology in medicine and medical nanorobotics. Watch Gina Miller’s animation of the dermal display concept. [video (qt)]

via Medgadget

Genetic Explorer

GNOM’s latest genetic network explorer combines the oracle (circular) and landscape (nodal) interfaces to represent the structural description and functional relations of Escherichia Coli genes.

via information aesthetics

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Spray-on Skin Cells

The first controlled clinical study to examine the effectiveness of sprayed cultured skin cells to close the wounds of burns victims is being undertaken at the Queen Victoria Hospital NHS Foundation Trust (QVH), East Grinstead. “We have seen what I can only describe as miraculous results using spray on skin with patients surviving 90% burns who otherwise had very little chance of survival.” [press release]

via MedGadget | BBC

'Miracle mouse' grows back damaged organs

A”miracle mouse” that is capable of regenerating its own organs has been discovered by a Ellen Heber-Katz, professor of immunology at the Wistar Institute.

via Times Online | KurzweilAI

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Manufactured Meat : Beyond Geneticallly Engineered Food

Jason Matheny and his colleagues at University of Maryland have described, in the journal Tissue Engineering, methods to grow meat in a lab. Scary, feasible, and has benefits? [article](pdf)

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Brain Cells on Demand

Regenerative medicine scientists at the University of Florida’s McKnight Brain Institute have discovered a cell culture method that may be able to produce a limitless supply of a person’s own brain cells. [article]

via Science Blog

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