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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“We have experimented with amputating or damaging several different organs, such as the heart, toes, tail and ears, and just watched them regrow,� she said. “It is quite remarkable. The only organ that did not grow back was the brain.

“When we injected foetal liver cells taken from those animals into ordinary mice, they too gained the power of regeneration. We found this persisted even six months after the injection.�

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)

Relative to conventional meat, cultured meat could offer a number of benefits. With cultured meat, the ratio of saturated to polyunsaturated fatty acids could be better controlled; the incidence of foodborne disease could be significantly reduced; and resources could be used more efficiently, as biological structures required for locomotion and reproduction would not have to be grown or supported. Whether or not cultured meat is economically practical is a different question. A number of tissue engineers have speculated on its prospects.

via Reuters

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

“It’s like an assembly line to manufacture and increase the number of brain cells,” said Bjorn Scheffler, M.D., a neuroscientist with UF’s College of Medicine. “We can basically take these cells and freeze them until we need them. Then we thaw them, begin a cell-generating process, and produce a ton of new neurons.”

If the discovery can translate to human applications, it will enhance efforts aimed at finding ways to use large numbers of a person’s own cells to restore damaged brain function, partially because the technique produces cells in far greater amounts than the body can on its own.