Scientists use Stem Cells to Grow Miniature Liver

Scientists have managed to produce a small-scale version of a human liver in the laboratory using stem cells.

The success increases hope that new transplant livers could be manufactured, although experts say that this is still many years away.

The team from Wake Forest University Baptist Medical Center presented its findings at at conference in Boston.

UK experts said it was an "exciting development" but it is not yet certain a fully-functioning liver is possible.The demand for transplant livers far exceeds the number of available organs, and in recent years, research has focused on ways to use cell technology to support failing organs in the body, or even one day replace them.

Their building block is the stem cell, a "master cell" which can, in certain conditions, can divide to produce different types of body tissue.

However, constructing a three-dimensional organ from stem cells is a difficult task. Click here to read the rest of the article from the BBC...

Our Organs, Our Property?

It is currently illegal to sell our own organs; however, the need for organ transplants far surpasses the number of available organs. One bioethics expert argues that we should be allowed to put our organs on the market in order to help the supply match the demand. This undoubtedly raises numerous ethical questions, but should we, as rightful owners of our organs, be allowed to receive compensation for donation? Read the following article by Professor Martin Wilkinson, ethics expert at Keele University for one perspective. 

When people's organs fail, their best hope - sometimes their only hope - is a transplant. Transplants are not only effective treatment, they are worth the money too. But there are not enough organs. Tinkering with the rules for consent, using less-than-pristine organs, and more donations by living people have still left a big gap between supply and demand.

Should the law be changed so that people could sell their organs? I think it should. Permitting sale would mean more people could get the organs they need. People should not be stopped from selling their organs because they have a right to do what they want with their bodies when they would not be harming others.

And would allowing sale make more organs available? The most basic economics lesson says that supply increases with price. Organs currently have a price of £0. Give people money for their organs and you will get more of them.

Basic economics is a bit too basic though. Perhaps few people would want to sell; perhaps people who would have donated now would not because, for instance, they are offended by the idea of money changing hands. In theory, the supply of organs could even fall if sales were allowed. However, when Iran gave generous compensation to live kidney `donors', it not only met demand but cleared the backlog on its waiting list.

Of course, people in the UK may not behave like people in Iran, so it would be sensible to do some research into people's willingness to take money for their organs. Still, if the aim is to increase the supply of organs, it would be worth giving sale a try. Click here to read the whole article. 

The Consent Conundrum

Read this article and consider the importance of patient consent in medical research.  Then finish writing your impromptu essay assignment.

By Jeremy Singer-Vine
Published Feb. 2, 2010 by Slate

In February1951, Henrietta Lacks lay unconscious, her feet in stirrups, at Johns Hopkins Hospital as doctors examined the particularly aggressive cervical cancer that would soon kill her. The 31-year-old had traveled 20 miles to Hopkins, the nearest major hospital that would treat black patients. She may have been a regular patient, but she was about to achieve an odd form of immortality in the medical world.

At the time, Hopkins' head of tissue culture research, George Gey, was refining the art of sustaining cells in stews of placental blood, chicken plasma, and other savory ingredients. After her surgery, Lacks' surgeon passed a thin disc of her cancerous cells to Gey's lab. Those cells became the first human tissue to replicate indefinitely in test tubes, launching a series of revolutions in medicine. The value of the so-called HeLa cell line that sprung from Lacks' tumor is incalculable: Its resilience and rapid growth made it ideal for testing Jonas Salk's polio vaccine, developing numerous cancer drugs, studying basic cellular processes, and honing experimental methods now standard in biology. Over the years, Lacks' cells have been sold for $10 to as much as $10,000 a vial—and her chronically impoverished family has received nothing.

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