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Speaker 1: Welcome to stuff to Blow your Mind from how stop

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Speaker 1: works dot com. Hey, welcome to stuff to blow your mind.

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Speaker 1: My name is Robert Lamb and I am Christian Sager. Hey, Robert,

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Speaker 1: would you eat an artificially grown organ? Well? The phrase

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Speaker 1: is a number of questions, doesn't it is it? Is

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Speaker 1: it an animal organ, a human organ? Let's say it's uh,

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Speaker 1: let's say it's an animal organ for now. Let's say

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Speaker 1: it's chicken. It's a chicken. It's just a slab of chicken. Uh.

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Speaker 1: And it's been nice and um fried up. It's covered

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Speaker 1: in in juicy oils and breading, and there's some butter

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Speaker 1: and spices on there. But you know this didn't come

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Speaker 1: from a real chicken. It was grown in a lab. Okay,

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Speaker 1: So on one level, I don't have to worry about

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Speaker 1: I was the chicken humanely raised? How did it live?

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Speaker 1: How did it die? A was it's diet? Yeah? These

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Speaker 1: were just grown from cells scraped off a chicken. Okay.

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Speaker 1: But then I have to worry about that side of it.

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Speaker 1: This is something artificial. It's something that has been grown

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Speaker 1: in a vat or or or grown over some scaffolding.

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Speaker 1: As well to discussing this episode. So how am I

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Speaker 1: supposed to feel about that? And then how am I

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Speaker 1: supposed to feel about eating needed all in this scenario?

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Speaker 1: Is it? Is it worth it? Why am I going

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Speaker 1: to these means, uh, these extremes to eat this food

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Speaker 1: to get this protein when I could conceivable we get

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Speaker 1: it from something that is a little less uh Frankensteiny

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Speaker 1: if you will. Yeah, and it raises a lot of questions,

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Speaker 1: a lot of Frankensteiny questions, as we're gonna talk about

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Speaker 1: throughout this episode today. We are talking about artificial organs

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Speaker 1: fresh from the vat, grown grown in a vat. Uh.

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Speaker 1: And this is sort of a spinoff from our penis

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Speaker 1: transplant episode because we ended and said, wow, there was

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Speaker 1: some research on artificially grown penises and vaginas and we

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Speaker 1: wish we had time to cover that, and we said,

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Speaker 1: let's just build a whole episode out of that. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: and it it actually follows nicely an episode that I

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Speaker 1: recorded with Joe that I think we'll publish directly before

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Speaker 1: this one that tackles the synthetic biology area from at

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Speaker 1: a more of a genetic genomic level. Yeah. Well, and

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Speaker 1: it's I mean, it's fascinating what we can do, uh,

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Speaker 1: and and also what we can't do. So we're gonna

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Speaker 1: sort of walk you the listener through, you know, the

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Speaker 1: general process, and then we're gonna go organ by organ

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Speaker 1: through the human body as to what we can actually

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Speaker 1: grow and potentially transplant. And at the end, I'm going

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Speaker 1: to try to keep track of this on a piece

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Speaker 1: of paper as we're going along here. And at the

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Speaker 1: end we're going to talk about what are artificially grown

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Speaker 1: Frankenstein looks like, like, what parts are we pretty close

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Speaker 1: to being able to sew together here for our Frankenstein? Yeah. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: we're going to provide we're potentially going to provide a

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Speaker 1: scaffolding of knowledge here that you may grow your own.

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Speaker 1: But but I think it's it's cool to sort of

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Speaker 1: take it piece by piece. And because this is how

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Speaker 1: science works, right, scale by scale we build out the

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Speaker 1: entire picture, and it's important to Let's let's get two

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Speaker 1: things out of the way before we dive into the vat. Uh.

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Speaker 1: There's the first is that you know some of you

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Speaker 1: are probably asking why would we need to grow organs

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Speaker 1: in a vat? Why why would we even do that

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Speaker 1: unless you're a mad scientist. Well, biomaterials are historically used

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Speaker 1: to replace diseased or damaged tissues. So you know, if

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Speaker 1: somebody's got a bad ticker or kidney or lung or whatever,

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Speaker 1: wouldn't be great if you could just swap in another

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Speaker 1: one that you grew in tank, rather than getting a

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Speaker 1: donation from somebody else, Which leads me to, uh, the

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Speaker 1: how organ transplantation works aspect of this as well. Now

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Speaker 1: we don't have time in this episode to cover it,

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Speaker 1: but if you haven't listened to our penis transplant episode,

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Speaker 1: we cover pretty much the whole process, not just penises,

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Speaker 1: but for all organ transplants. At the beginning of that episode,

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Speaker 1: you know how how you go about finding a donor

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Speaker 1: the immuno suppressive of medicine that's required all of that

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Speaker 1: bone marrow transplants. So we're not going to really do

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Speaker 1: a deep dive on that today, but keep in mind

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Speaker 1: a lot of the same principles apply here. Yeah, indeed,

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Speaker 1: and just to drive them, two of the just key

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Speaker 1: sobering facts here is that a there's a worldwide shortage

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Speaker 1: of donor organs out there, and every day, just in

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Speaker 1: the United States, twenty two people die while waiting for

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Speaker 1: organ transplants and escorting to federal statistics. And this is

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Speaker 1: a great time as well. If you're feeling that that

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Speaker 1: information hit you, UH, make sure that you're a registered

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Speaker 1: organ donor. And if you have any um, you know,

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Speaker 1: issues surrounding that, I encourage you to sort of work

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Speaker 1: your way through them. And also I believe in depending

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Speaker 1: on where you are, you can put certain you can

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Speaker 1: put certain limits on your own organ donation. So if

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Speaker 1: you do have like a weird thing about your your heart,

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Speaker 1: you know that I wanted to remain inside of a

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Speaker 1: coptic jar in your pyramid, I believe you can. You

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Speaker 1: can specify that. Yeah, and and I'll red or ate

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Speaker 1: this from the penis transplant episode. Some organs are not

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Speaker 1: automatically covered on your regular old organ donor transplant card

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Speaker 1: H so you need to specify, for instance, that they

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Speaker 1: can take your penis or they can I don't know

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Speaker 1: what the other ones would be. Penis was the one

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Speaker 1: that we really feel. And I want to stress if

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Speaker 1: you're worried about what's gonna happen to your penis after

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Speaker 1: you die, um, virtually if you do nothing, if nothing

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Speaker 1: happens to if it's not donated, nothing good is going

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Speaker 1: to happen to your penis? Trust me? Um, so why

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Speaker 1: not donated so it can do some good? Uh, So

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Speaker 1: let's just cover this. There's a general kind of approach

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Speaker 1: that has multiple angles for growing human organs, although we

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Speaker 1: do sometimes grow animal organs to test out the process

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Speaker 1: in a vat in a culture. Right there, they're actually

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Speaker 1: you know, a few different approaches. This is a really

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Speaker 1: exciting area of science. And if you if you follow

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Speaker 1: the literature like we do, uh, there's always some new

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Speaker 1: technique that's that's you know, being experimented with or just

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Speaker 1: sort of rolled out as a theoretical possibility. It's gotten

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Speaker 1: to the point where, like I'd say, there's weekly there's

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Speaker 1: a headline about somebody using a three D printer to

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Speaker 1: buy print some kind of bio material, to the point

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Speaker 1: where like it doesn't even maybe to us because we

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Speaker 1: look at it so often, but it doesn't feel shocking anymore.

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Speaker 1: The first time I was like, WHOA, you can print

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Speaker 1: skin on a three D print. There, that's cool, And

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Speaker 1: now it's kind of like yeah, of course, yeah. And

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Speaker 1: some of them are basically that like ink jetting cell

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Speaker 1: types into organized structures. Essentially three D printing with stem

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Speaker 1: cells in some cases. Other times you're talking about the

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Speaker 1: use of scaffolding, which we'll get into, or letting cell

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Speaker 1: spontaneously self organized into proto organs. Uh. You know again

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Speaker 1: within a vat of some kind or some sort of

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Speaker 1: a culture. Um. Yeah, the floating I believe it's called

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Speaker 1: the floating culture is what we're going to get into later.

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Speaker 1: That when you have to grow something three dimensionally. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: And this is all interesting because we're we're playing with

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Speaker 1: life here. We're manipulating self building, self organizing systems in

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Speaker 1: order to build or grow specific structures and tissues for

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Speaker 1: specific bodies. So it's not like you're just building something

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Speaker 1: out of the bricks. It's like you're building something out

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Speaker 1: of bricks and the bricks had their own agenda already. Yeah. Absolutely,

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Speaker 1: these are not your father's legos. These these well they

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Speaker 1: might be, but yeah, they do they like we like

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Speaker 1: we've talked about before, whenever you're kind of rearranging cells

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Speaker 1: on human level and trying to get them to attach

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Speaker 1: to other cells. There's all kinds of different things that

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Speaker 1: they're doing. Uh. And that synthetic biomaterials one that we

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Speaker 1: talked about that as well too in terms of how

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Speaker 1: the how you can sort of program them to have

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Speaker 1: different powers. Right. Yeah, Now we're gonna talk about stem

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Speaker 1: cells a little bit in this, so I just want

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Speaker 1: to go ahead and throw out just a quick reminder

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Speaker 1: what stem cells are for everyone. And this is just

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Speaker 1: information that comes right from how stuff works How stem

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Speaker 1: cells work article. Check that if you want a deeper die.

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Speaker 1: But stem cells essentially the building block of human body.

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Speaker 1: Stem cells are capable of dividing for long periods of time,

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Speaker 1: they're unspecialized, and they can develop into specialized cells. So

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Speaker 1: stem cells inside an embryo will eventually give rise to

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Speaker 1: every cell, tissue, and organ in the fetus's body. But

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Speaker 1: unlike a regular cell, which can only replicate to create

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Speaker 1: more of its own kind of cell, a stem cell

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Speaker 1: is pluripotent. When it divides, it can make any one

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Speaker 1: of the two twenty different cells in the human body.

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Speaker 1: But we don't just have embryonic stem cells, which of

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Speaker 1: course come from the embryo or the fetus or the

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Speaker 1: umbilical cord blood. We also have adult stem cells, which

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Speaker 1: are These are an already developed tissues, such as those

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Speaker 1: of the heart, the brain, the kidney, and they usually

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Speaker 1: give rise to cells within their resident organs. And then

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Speaker 1: we also have induced pluriphoton stem cells, and these are

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Speaker 1: stem cells that are their adult. Uh, they're differentiated cells

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Speaker 1: that are then experimentally reprogrammed into a stem cell like state.

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Speaker 1: And this is in portant to distinguish the difference between

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Speaker 1: the embryonic stem cells and the adult stem cells because

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Speaker 1: I feel like, you know, this was probably over ten

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Speaker 1: years ago that the big controversial debate about using stem

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Speaker 1: cells and science was going around in political circles. But

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Speaker 1: I believe that most people think embryonic stem cells when

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Speaker 1: they just hear stem cells, they're not thinking about that

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Speaker 1: that there's the possibility for other types of stem cells

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Speaker 1: to be used in this. Yeah, the politics kind of

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Speaker 1: loaded the term a bit, so it's good to to

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Speaker 1: to be specific. So let's talk about the main process

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Speaker 1: that's used for growing flesh. I guess is the best

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Speaker 1: way to say it, because there it's not always an organ,

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Speaker 1: you know, it could be any kind of flesh depending

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Speaker 1: on what you're what you're scrape in and what you're

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Speaker 1: kind of protein gel you're soaking it in. But the

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Speaker 1: process is generally generally called de cellular ization and essentially

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Speaker 1: what you're doing here's your making replacement parts out of

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Speaker 1: the raw materials from a patient or from undifferentiated stem cells.

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Speaker 1: So you take cells from that organ, you put them

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Speaker 1: into lab dishes, and you bade them in a fluid

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Speaker 1: that prompts them to multiply. Now, I don't want to

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Speaker 1: dive super deep into the biochemistry of all of this

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Speaker 1: because I think it would confuse us, and it would

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Speaker 1: confuse most of our listeners unless we're already a biochemist, right,

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Speaker 1: But um, you know, it sounded to me like the

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Speaker 1: type of fluid depended on what type of thing you're

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Speaker 1: trying to grow, too, uh, And this process takes a while.

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Speaker 1: For instance, if you want to grow a human bladder,

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Speaker 1: that takes about six weeks scripts them cells off, you

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Speaker 1: get in the right mixture, you to let it wait,

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Speaker 1: takes about six weeks to go. But what you need

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Speaker 1: before you can actually have an artificial organ is a

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Speaker 1: temporary structure. And this is what we're talking about when

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Speaker 1: we say scaffolding. Basically, this mimics the basic internal architecture

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Speaker 1: of cartilage, and it also protects the growing cells from

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Speaker 1: any kind of mechanical stress. Upon them. So this scaffold

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Speaker 1: is what we pour the cells onto. That's pretty nuts. Yeah.

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Speaker 1: It always reminds me of the Terminator movies, the exo

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Speaker 1: skeleton and then you're growing the flesh on it, or

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Speaker 1: specifically the toys that came out where it was like

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Speaker 1: an exo skeleton toy and you had to put like

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Speaker 1: on it. Oh, you put Plato on it. I was

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Speaker 1: agreed if you could like peel its skin off and

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Speaker 1: then put it back on again or something like that,

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Speaker 1: like my flesh suit. Um. Yeah, absolutely. I wonder if

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Speaker 1: James Cameron and his crew did their homework on scaffolding

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Speaker 1: back then, although the eighties I don't think scaffolding was

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Speaker 1: really at its height yet. You know this this my

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Speaker 1: understanding and we'll find out as we go along, really

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Speaker 1: kind of starting the seventies. Um, but maybe he was

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Speaker 1: aware of it. So if you use what are called

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Speaker 1: condroblast cells in the scaffold, it allows the cells that

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Speaker 1: you attached to grow and to divide and to even

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Speaker 1: regrow the cartilage. Then you coat this with other cells

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Speaker 1: that are important to the organ. So for instance, if

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Speaker 1: you're trying to grow bladder, you would code it with

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Speaker 1: eurotheel cells. Uh, this would allow it to sort of

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Speaker 1: you know, have the moisteness and allow urine to pass through. Right. Uh.

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Speaker 1: Weirdest of all, you can actually design the scaffold to

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Speaker 1: dissolve itself once all the cells are finished rebuilding. Right,

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Speaker 1: So cells grow up around this scaffold, they create their

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Speaker 1: own system of cartilage, and then the scaffold dissolves and boom,

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Speaker 1: you've got an artificially grown organ. One of my favorite

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Speaker 1: descriptions of the process here comes from the founder of

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Speaker 1: Harvard Apparatus Regenerative Technology or heart and I think now

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Speaker 1: it's actually called biostage, but the founder was made by

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Speaker 1: the name of David Green and in um and is

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Speaker 1: quoted in a technology review is stems. Stem cells are

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Speaker 1: taken from a patient's bone marrow, and then they are

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Speaker 1: rained down over the top of the scaffold, much like

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Speaker 1: a chicken in a rotisserie. Yeah, I'm in mad saying

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Speaker 1: that this is like stem self fondue, like dip and drip. Well.

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Speaker 1: The method was first pioneered by a guy named Larry

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Speaker 1: Hench and this was in the late nineteen sixties. Basically,

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Speaker 1: he and his team were seeing a lot of amputees

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Speaker 1: coming back from the Vietnam War, and they wanted to

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Speaker 1: try to do something. So they discovered and used a

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Speaker 1: material that's called hydro zala petite, and this is a

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Speaker 1: mineral that actually occurs in the human body and bonds

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Speaker 1: really well with bone. So they found that when they

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Speaker 1: experimented with it in the form of what they called

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Speaker 1: a bioactive glass, it had excellent properties for this application

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Speaker 1: of artificial organs. Bone cells could actually live on it

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Speaker 1: and then subsequently create healthy new bone. So it seems

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Speaker 1: like it it would work perfectly. Right. You grow the

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Speaker 1: cells for the muscle, the meat, I guess as we

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Speaker 1: would call it, and then the bone itself will regrow

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Speaker 1: in the cartilage as well. So that's the sort of

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Speaker 1: origin of this starting off. And that's sixties. That's that's

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Speaker 1: time enough to terminator. Yeah, all right, James Cameron probably

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Speaker 1: was down with a scaffolding science by then. Do you

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Speaker 1: think the eight hundred had any organs? It definitely had skinned,

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Speaker 1: good question blood. Yeah, it had at least something that

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Speaker 1: looked like eyeballs over its robotic I couldn't eat. I

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Speaker 1: can't remember. Could a tight hundred eat or did it

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Speaker 1: just like I'm also like, give it to me that. Wow,

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Speaker 1: I didn't know you had that Arnold Schwartz. We all

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Speaker 1: have an Arnold. Um. I keep getting my Terminator timelines

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Speaker 1: confused with all the new movies and the Sarah Connor chronicles,

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Speaker 1: which makes me I don't know if those are considered

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Speaker 1: cannon anymore. But they don't think even they know those. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: I don't think they do either. But those robots were

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Speaker 1: doing all kinds of weird things that yeah, well we'll

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Speaker 1: have to throw that one out the listeners. I think

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Speaker 1: they did like a kind of scaffolding type thing though

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Speaker 1: in those like they sort of tried to explain how

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Speaker 1: it works. I remember they would like in the show. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: never watched the TV show, but I heard people and

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Speaker 1: put their bodies in like a bathtub and melt down,

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Speaker 1: melt them down so they could then subsequently kind of

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Speaker 1: like this process like regrow the flesh on top of them,

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Speaker 1: so they basically took their place. So organ scaffolding um,

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Speaker 1: in the real sense that we're talking about here, also

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Speaker 1: entails a great deal of bio mimetic material possibilities. Uh.

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Speaker 1: And this is an area where I've I've kind of

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Speaker 1: dealt with the topics some over the years. Uh. For

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Speaker 1: how stuff works, a scientist continue to take inspiration from

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Speaker 1: such diverse wonder materials of the natural world as spider

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Speaker 1: silk and also the squid sucker in protein responsible for

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Speaker 1: their ringed sucker teeth on a squid centacle. Both of

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Speaker 1: these materials are ideal is they're strong, they're malleable, and

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Speaker 1: they're organic. Yeah. That's the really difficult thing here, is

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Speaker 1: like we can grow skin all the livelong day, but

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Speaker 1: being able to grow materials that are both strong and

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Speaker 1: flexible the same way our actual organs are is tough. Yeah.

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Speaker 1: Scientists in Germany have proposed using spider silk as a biocompatible,

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Speaker 1: biodegradable adhesive matrix for skin repair specifically, and this involves

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Speaker 1: using dragline silk, which is like the premium silk because

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Speaker 1: I'm maybe even minus the spiders have different types of

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Speaker 1: webbing that threadcount. Yeah essentially, Yeah, I mean spider silk.

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Speaker 1: I think we have an old episode in the in

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Speaker 1: the archives about it. Go back and listen to it

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Speaker 1: if you want more. But it is uh, yeah, this

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Speaker 1: fascinating strong, malleable substance and uh, and and the spider

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Speaker 1: is is like a musician creating these different different notes

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Speaker 1: of web. But this particular a bit of research. They

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Speaker 1: they were talking about weaving matrices on steel frames and

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Speaker 1: seeding them with the fire blasts, which provides the structural

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Speaker 1: background for all the connective tissue. And if you want

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Speaker 1: something even crazier, and this is this is the one

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Speaker 1: that I read about back in two thousand ten. We

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Speaker 1: were just talking about this off air. This is blockers,

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Speaker 1: this is it's two thousand tents, so it's actually a

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Speaker 1: little bit old at this point. It was a Rice

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Speaker 1: University scheme to inject cells with a metallic gel, and

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Speaker 1: the researchers then would have would have succeeded in the

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Speaker 1: suspending cultured cells in a three dimensional magnetic field, and

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Speaker 1: this would serve as a magnetic scaffolding and organs would

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Speaker 1: be grown around that in the right shape without any

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Speaker 1: foreign materials at all. Wow, which is that's pretty crazy,

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Speaker 1: said sadly. That doesn't seem to be a lot of

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Speaker 1: new information on this. I don't know if they're still

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Speaker 1: working on it or if it's an idea that is

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Speaker 1: kind of shelved. But I'm also trying to imagine how

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Speaker 1: the metallic substances, uh, dissolve in the same way that

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Speaker 1: like the organic scaffoldings that we're using to you know,

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Speaker 1: like or would you just have it? Would you be

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Speaker 1: like Wolverine and you just have like metal built into

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Speaker 1: your I don't know, flesh somehow, just in flex here

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Speaker 1: and there. What's It's interesting you mentioned Wolverine because I

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Speaker 1: feel like the second X Man movie, there's a scene

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Speaker 1: where Mystique injects like a prison guard with a metallic gel,

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Speaker 1: so that Magneto Canes has that. Yeah, yeah, yeah, totally.

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Speaker 1: He sucks the like metal dust out of this guy's body. Right,

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Speaker 1: you can make little like or that's my favorite scene

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Speaker 1: in that movie. Oh yeah, that makes the little orbs

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Speaker 1: and he's grinning while he's shooting the orbs around smashing everything.

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Speaker 1: Ian McKellen, if only we could artificially grow Ian McKellan now.

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Speaker 1: In order to pull off this the scheme, though, with

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Speaker 1: the magnetic at least suspended organ scaffolding, they need to

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Speaker 1: be able to program a detailed magnetic field that would

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Speaker 1: float the stem cells and in the exact spots needed

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Speaker 1: to grow the full organ. So hopefully, you know, here

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Speaker 1: we'll hear more about that one in the future, because

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Speaker 1: I think it's a pretty crazy cool idea. Yeah, But anyway,

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Speaker 1: they're numerous studies out there, the quest for new and

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Speaker 1: improved ways of scaffolding out in Oregon, everything from synthetic

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Speaker 1: collagen to biommetic materials, self assembling scaffolds, et cetera. So, however,

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Speaker 1: you scaffold out the artificial organ that you're working on.

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Speaker 1: Once you've done that, the organ needs to be nurtured

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Speaker 1: in an incubator that mimics our body's conditions so that

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Speaker 1: the cells can grow together some more. You're looking basically

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Speaker 1: to recreate the temperature and humidity of the human body. Now,

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Speaker 1: remember when we talked to um Mary Roach, right, we

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Speaker 1: talked on the penile transplant episode. We talked about why

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Speaker 1: the the nose is particularly good for doing penis transplants, right,

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Speaker 1: because the nose has the same sort of properties of

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Speaker 1: moisteness that you need for that spongy tissue and a penis.

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Speaker 1: So this is the same kind of thing. Basically, like,

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Speaker 1: you want to get these cells to react and deal

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Speaker 1: with their environment the way that they're going to need

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Speaker 1: to inside the human body, then you implant it into

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Speaker 1: the patient the scaffold gradually dissolves. The biggest problem for

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Speaker 1: this method is maintaining a blood supply to the artificial

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Speaker 1: tissue once it's implanted in the human body. There are

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Speaker 1: also a cup other weird methods that haven't similar to

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Speaker 1: the like this metallic scaffold link thing I haven't really

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Speaker 1: quite taken off yet. Um. But the first one, you know,

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Speaker 1: we mentioned at the top is the three D printing, right, So, yeah,

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Speaker 1: you can three D print uh flesh right now. I

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Speaker 1: don't know that you can three D print organs in

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Speaker 1: the same way that we do when we grow them

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Speaker 1: in cultures like this, right because it's because as we've

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Speaker 1: kind of laid out here, it's like, on one hand,

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Speaker 1: you have cells and then you have tissue. And it's

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Speaker 1: one thing you have the tissue, but then you have

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Speaker 1: the tissue, uh and and or various tissues forming into

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Speaker 1: an organ. That's a more complicated endeavor. So there's this

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Speaker 1: company called Organovo. I wonder how long they spent like

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Speaker 1: trying to come up with that one, or is it

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Speaker 1: organ organ Ovo? Maybe very nice? That one that makes

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Speaker 1: more sense out of there, based out of San Diego,

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Speaker 1: and they distribute body part printers, and these basically go

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Speaker 1: to the labs that are already working on these artificial organs.

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Speaker 1: It basically works just like an incent printer. It sides

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Speaker 1: droplets of cells and scaffold materials onto a platform that

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Speaker 1: gradually builds the tissue in three dimensions. So the labs

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Speaker 1: all around the world use this. They mainly build skin, muscle,

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Speaker 1: and blood vessels out of it. One lab has actually

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Speaker 1: refined it to be able to make a mouse sized

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Speaker 1: heart in forty minutes. And I want to use this

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Speaker 1: as an opportunity to let you the audience know that

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Speaker 1: we're about to get into some mouse brutality big time.

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Speaker 1: Like this is a field where without mice and rats,

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Speaker 1: we wouldn't have been able to go far. And I'm

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Speaker 1: going to have nightmares about these swarms of rats that

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Speaker 1: are going to be coming at me with artificially grown

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Speaker 1: human organs attached to them in various positions. There's one

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Speaker 1: other thing I mentioned Wolverine earlier, right, because the whole

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Speaker 1: metal thing. The ultimate goal here is that you wouldn't

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Speaker 1: grow the organs in a vat, but rather that you

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Speaker 1: would diagnose that there's something wrong with the organs ahead

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Speaker 1: of time and that you would then inject health these

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Speaker 1: cells and growth inducing molecules into these injured organs and

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Speaker 1: prompt them to regenerate on their own, so repairing the

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Speaker 1: organ as opposed to replacing it exactly. And we would

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Speaker 1: be wolverines. We would just our skin would regrow if

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Speaker 1: we had a bad laceration or a burn, or you know,

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00:22:16,600 --> 00:22:20,959
Speaker 1: our lungs would rego grow if we had a smoking problem, whatever,

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Speaker 1: whatever you need, just inject some of those cells. That's

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Speaker 1: the future oriented goal of this. We are not there yet,

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Speaker 1: but that that's what they're looking at now. Um, you know,

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Speaker 1: the best places we've discussed. We talked about the essential

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Speaker 1: step and getting that synthetic organ inside a human body,

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Speaker 1: growing in and just the right conditions, etcetera. So obviously

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Speaker 1: the best place to grow human organ is probably inside

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Speaker 1: a human. Failing that, what about a non human animal.

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Speaker 1: So we've utilized as xeno transplantation in the past, say,

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Speaker 1: you know, from a pig or a bad boon. You know,

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Speaker 1: we've all we've all read about those various transplants and

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Speaker 1: they come with their share of concerns and complications as well.

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Speaker 1: I'm envisioning like you just take like a blue whale,

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Speaker 1: and you just fill it up with human organs, like

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Speaker 1: it's just a giant blue whale organ growing farm. I

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Speaker 1: do love that idea. It reminds me of one of

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Speaker 1: my favorite Invader Zim episodes where he's going around the

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Speaker 1: school as Zim as a as an alien disguised as

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Speaker 1: a child. This is Yeah, in one of the darker episodes,

427
00:23:24,720 --> 00:23:28,080
Speaker 1: he's going around harvesting organs from the children and implanting

428
00:23:28,119 --> 00:23:30,760
Speaker 1: them in his own body until he's just a bloated

429
00:23:30,840 --> 00:23:34,880
Speaker 1: balloon of Pilford organs and all the children are sick. Yeah.

430
00:23:34,920 --> 00:23:37,600
Speaker 1: I couldn't help but have dark thoughts as as I

431
00:23:37,720 --> 00:23:40,879
Speaker 1: was doing this research. This is fertile ground for some

432
00:23:41,080 --> 00:23:43,880
Speaker 1: horror material. Yeah. And but but more to the point,

433
00:23:43,960 --> 00:23:47,080
Speaker 1: fertile ground for growing organs. Why not just grow a

434
00:23:47,240 --> 00:23:50,960
Speaker 1: human ready organ inside of say a pig. Well, there's

435
00:23:51,119 --> 00:23:53,960
Speaker 1: research into the Researchers at the University of California Davis

436
00:23:54,000 --> 00:23:56,520
Speaker 1: have done just that, created embryos that have both human

437
00:23:56,560 --> 00:23:59,320
Speaker 1: and pig cells. They've used human stem cells from an

438
00:23:59,320 --> 00:24:02,159
Speaker 1: adult skin in her hair, use them in a pig embryo,

439
00:24:02,240 --> 00:24:05,760
Speaker 1: and then injected it into the uterus of a pig. Now,

440
00:24:06,440 --> 00:24:09,159
Speaker 1: in these experiments, after twenty eight days, the they terminate

441
00:24:09,200 --> 00:24:12,480
Speaker 1: the pig's pregnancies and then they analyze the cell remnants.

442
00:24:13,080 --> 00:24:15,680
Speaker 1: But essentially the the idea here is pretty awesome because

443
00:24:15,680 --> 00:24:17,400
Speaker 1: you just you knock out the section and an animal's

444
00:24:17,480 --> 00:24:19,720
Speaker 1: DNA that concerns a particular organ, and then you replace

445
00:24:19,840 --> 00:24:23,159
Speaker 1: it with human adult stem cells. Embryos don't have an

446
00:24:23,200 --> 00:24:26,320
Speaker 1: immune system, so they can't reject the foreign cells. No

447
00:24:26,480 --> 00:24:29,680
Speaker 1: cells begin growing the desired organ. So it's a long

448
00:24:29,800 --> 00:24:33,240
Speaker 1: way from being a viable option for organ replacement, but

449
00:24:34,280 --> 00:24:36,280
Speaker 1: it you know, it makes a lot of sense, right

450
00:24:36,760 --> 00:24:44,600
Speaker 1: if you're ethical, depending depending on your moral uh yeah, standing, yeah, yeah,

451
00:24:44,640 --> 00:24:49,720
Speaker 1: ethical issues aside, you are growing needed transplant organs within

452
00:24:50,119 --> 00:24:54,240
Speaker 1: a domesticated animal and then harvesting them for use. It

453
00:24:54,359 --> 00:24:56,280
Speaker 1: also makes your question at the top of the episode

454
00:24:56,280 --> 00:24:58,760
Speaker 1: a little more problematic. It does. If I'm eating an

455
00:24:58,880 --> 00:25:02,720
Speaker 1: organ from a pig, is it actually humanized pig or

456
00:25:02,720 --> 00:25:08,480
Speaker 1: those human organs? Yeah? Uh? And speaking of ethical quandaries,

457
00:25:08,480 --> 00:25:11,240
Speaker 1: I suppose this is probably a good time to remind

458
00:25:11,280 --> 00:25:14,720
Speaker 1: the audience, uh that I'm the vegetarian on stuff to

459
00:25:14,760 --> 00:25:18,240
Speaker 1: blow your mind. Uh, And we are about to talk

460
00:25:18,320 --> 00:25:23,679
Speaker 1: about exactly that not being a vegetarian, but growing synthetic

461
00:25:24,160 --> 00:25:27,560
Speaker 1: meat to eat the same way that we grow very

462
00:25:27,640 --> 00:25:30,280
Speaker 1: similar way to how we grow artificial organs. And I

463
00:25:30,320 --> 00:25:33,159
Speaker 1: wanted to throw this in here as well, because my

464
00:25:33,320 --> 00:25:35,800
Speaker 1: natural thought goes to, well, if we can grow these

465
00:25:35,920 --> 00:25:40,480
Speaker 1: human organs, should we eat them? You know, are you

466
00:25:40,560 --> 00:25:45,199
Speaker 1: a cannibal if you eat human bladder that's been grown

467
00:25:45,560 --> 00:25:49,399
Speaker 1: in of that? Hm, I don't know. Yeah, I mean

468
00:25:49,480 --> 00:25:53,680
Speaker 1: it makes eating medical waste all the more problematic, so

469
00:25:53,880 --> 00:25:56,760
Speaker 1: totally and uh and also like you know, who knows

470
00:25:56,800 --> 00:25:58,560
Speaker 1: how it tastes, but if you want to know, maybe

471
00:25:58,600 --> 00:26:00,320
Speaker 1: you want to know what human flesh taste slight, but

472
00:26:00,440 --> 00:26:03,040
Speaker 1: you don't want to, you know, go that far down

473
00:26:03,080 --> 00:26:06,000
Speaker 1: the extreme path. It provides a safe outlet for the

474
00:26:06,040 --> 00:26:08,879
Speaker 1: hannibal electric of the world. Exactly, yeah, exactly. I was

475
00:26:08,920 --> 00:26:12,240
Speaker 1: thinking of Hannibal and all those perfect feasts he put together. Well,

476
00:26:12,400 --> 00:26:14,600
Speaker 1: so the synthetic meat thing works a little differently. But

477
00:26:14,680 --> 00:26:17,399
Speaker 1: here's a quick overview. You take some muscle cells from

478
00:26:17,440 --> 00:26:20,719
Speaker 1: a living animal and you use it to culture lumps

479
00:26:20,840 --> 00:26:25,000
Speaker 1: of tissue ostensibly to be eaten. Uh. They're said to

480
00:26:25,119 --> 00:26:28,359
Speaker 1: look a little bit more like calamari than beef. So

481
00:26:28,680 --> 00:26:32,560
Speaker 1: I used to work in a kitchen, a seafood kitchen

482
00:26:32,600 --> 00:26:35,439
Speaker 1: and cut calamari all the time, thinking like white kind

483
00:26:35,480 --> 00:26:38,240
Speaker 1: of plastic e strips rather than you know, what we

484
00:26:38,320 --> 00:26:41,880
Speaker 1: think of is like ground beef. Yeah, it's pretty bland stuff. Yeah,

485
00:26:42,040 --> 00:26:44,880
Speaker 1: that's what it sounds like. But the plan that they're

486
00:26:44,920 --> 00:26:46,920
Speaker 1: talking about to make it taste better is to mix

487
00:26:47,000 --> 00:26:51,040
Speaker 1: in artificial blood and fat so it actually tastes like meat.

488
00:26:51,800 --> 00:26:53,920
Speaker 1: Uh So that then subsequently like where do you get

489
00:26:53,920 --> 00:26:56,639
Speaker 1: the artificial blood? Where do you give the fat? You know?

490
00:26:56,840 --> 00:27:01,120
Speaker 1: But but anyway, um in twenty in two thousand one,

491
00:27:01,600 --> 00:27:05,640
Speaker 1: bioengineers at New York's Touro College did this with a goldfish.

492
00:27:06,040 --> 00:27:09,919
Speaker 1: They immersed the goldfishes cells in a nutrient rich fetal

493
00:27:10,040 --> 00:27:14,440
Speaker 1: bovine serum. The muscle cells then divided and reproduced like normal,

494
00:27:14,560 --> 00:27:18,960
Speaker 1: producing chunks of fish flesh. But none of these researchers

495
00:27:19,040 --> 00:27:22,600
Speaker 1: would eat it after even after the lead researcher flavored

496
00:27:22,680 --> 00:27:24,480
Speaker 1: it and fried it in oil, he said, come on,

497
00:27:24,600 --> 00:27:28,719
Speaker 1: somebody eat it. Nobody would. Where are Here's the thing.

498
00:27:28,960 --> 00:27:33,159
Speaker 1: I'm a vegetarian. I think i'd eat that. I mean

499
00:27:33,200 --> 00:27:35,000
Speaker 1: in the name of science. I would give it a try. Yeah,

500
00:27:35,040 --> 00:27:38,520
Speaker 1: why not. Uh, Well, inven somebody did have the guts

501
00:27:38,560 --> 00:27:41,560
Speaker 1: to go ahead and do this at the University of Missouri. Uh,

502
00:27:41,640 --> 00:27:44,800
Speaker 1: they had a specialist produced a sample of synthetic muscle

503
00:27:45,200 --> 00:27:48,480
Speaker 1: and then he ate that at a conference. Now he

504
00:27:48,600 --> 00:27:52,160
Speaker 1: has started his own company called Modern Meadows to sell

505
00:27:52,720 --> 00:27:55,880
Speaker 1: grown meat to consumers. Uh. It's not on the market yet,

506
00:27:55,960 --> 00:27:58,520
Speaker 1: but they are talking about using a three D printer

507
00:27:58,840 --> 00:28:01,760
Speaker 1: to build fake meat, and a team of researchers in

508
00:28:01,800 --> 00:28:05,320
Speaker 1: the Netherlands is working on something similar. In two thousand seven,

509
00:28:05,440 --> 00:28:09,320
Speaker 1: they said that they could manufacture fake meat. And I'm

510
00:28:09,359 --> 00:28:11,280
Speaker 1: not talking about like soy meat like you're buying the

511
00:28:11,359 --> 00:28:16,800
Speaker 1: grocery store corn or something like that is more biologically

512
00:28:16,920 --> 00:28:20,239
Speaker 1: cellularly it is meat. Yeah. Uh. They think that they

513
00:28:20,280 --> 00:28:23,040
Speaker 1: can manufacture it for five thousand dollars a ton, And

514
00:28:23,119 --> 00:28:24,679
Speaker 1: I heard that and I thought, wow, that's a lot

515
00:28:24,720 --> 00:28:28,439
Speaker 1: of money. But it's actually economically competitive with the costs

516
00:28:28,480 --> 00:28:31,639
Speaker 1: of actual meat nowadays, especially when you take into account

517
00:28:31,760 --> 00:28:36,280
Speaker 1: just the environmental footprint of raising account. Absolutely. Yeah, that's

518
00:28:36,320 --> 00:28:39,040
Speaker 1: part of the big argument. I mean this, a lot

519
00:28:39,120 --> 00:28:40,960
Speaker 1: of this research isn't being done because of like a

520
00:28:41,080 --> 00:28:44,160
Speaker 1: vegetarian style ethical argument. It's being done for exactly what

521
00:28:44,240 --> 00:28:46,960
Speaker 1: you're talking about, which is the impact that the meat

522
00:28:47,000 --> 00:28:52,360
Speaker 1: industry has on our environment. Uh so these are really

523
00:28:52,520 --> 00:28:55,000
Speaker 1: they're just chunks of meat. But here's the thing, like,

524
00:28:55,280 --> 00:28:57,680
Speaker 1: let's say you want your steak, right, Well, steaks a

525
00:28:57,720 --> 00:29:00,720
Speaker 1: little bit more complex. It's got fibers, is blood vessels,

526
00:29:00,720 --> 00:29:03,320
Speaker 1: there's fat involved, right, So you can't just grow a

527
00:29:03,400 --> 00:29:07,160
Speaker 1: steak right now. Um. And then the question really is

528
00:29:07,240 --> 00:29:08,920
Speaker 1: is if you put this out there and marketed it,

529
00:29:09,080 --> 00:29:14,240
Speaker 1: would people actually eat that grown meat? I think they would.

530
00:29:14,880 --> 00:29:17,120
Speaker 1: You know. I thought about this a lot in the past,

531
00:29:17,480 --> 00:29:21,240
Speaker 1: not only concerning fake meat and synthetic meat, but also

532
00:29:22,120 --> 00:29:26,000
Speaker 1: the use of of insect protein in food because of

533
00:29:26,080 --> 00:29:28,520
Speaker 1: course some people, um, you know, have a problem with that.

534
00:29:29,600 --> 00:29:32,880
Speaker 1: And I always wonder why when you especially when you're

535
00:29:32,880 --> 00:29:36,680
Speaker 1: looking not at steak, but say, uh, chicken nuggets at

536
00:29:36,720 --> 00:29:39,360
Speaker 1: a fast food restaurant, or fish sticks or some of

537
00:29:39,440 --> 00:29:42,280
Speaker 1: the very processed forms of meat out there, Like, what

538
00:29:42,600 --> 00:29:45,240
Speaker 1: is the difference? This is so removed from the creature

539
00:29:45,480 --> 00:29:49,120
Speaker 1: that that it was, then you know, why why not

540
00:29:49,320 --> 00:29:52,360
Speaker 1: just make it from some cheaper, more you know, easily

541
00:29:52,360 --> 00:29:55,120
Speaker 1: acquired protein that is just as good for us. Why

542
00:29:55,200 --> 00:29:58,239
Speaker 1: not use synthetic that grown meat and the nuggets if

543
00:29:58,240 --> 00:30:02,240
Speaker 1: the neggat nuggets are essentially made from this weird, grotesque

544
00:30:02,320 --> 00:30:04,800
Speaker 1: chicken slurry anyway, Yeah, I mean, I don't want to

545
00:30:04,840 --> 00:30:06,720
Speaker 1: go too down. We don't have the research in front

546
00:30:06,760 --> 00:30:08,240
Speaker 1: of us, and I don't want to go to down

547
00:30:08,320 --> 00:30:11,440
Speaker 1: the vegetarian rabbit hole on this one. But yeah, I

548
00:30:11,520 --> 00:30:13,920
Speaker 1: think most people recognize that, like a lot of fast

549
00:30:14,080 --> 00:30:17,560
Speaker 1: food isn't as much meat as we'd like to think, right,

550
00:30:17,880 --> 00:30:20,239
Speaker 1: There's a lot of chemical components in there that are

551
00:30:20,280 --> 00:30:24,200
Speaker 1: holding it together. Yeah, it's a very processed meat based

552
00:30:24,320 --> 00:30:28,080
Speaker 1: protein food. So if we're if we're okay with that,

553
00:30:28,200 --> 00:30:31,600
Speaker 1: if we can all say chicken nuggets are okay as

554
00:30:31,640 --> 00:30:34,400
Speaker 1: a process that we'd cut out any ethical concerns, then

555
00:30:34,640 --> 00:30:37,920
Speaker 1: let's take that process and apply it to uh, you know,

556
00:30:38,080 --> 00:30:42,520
Speaker 1: synthetic biology. Yeah. Yeah, Well, we certainly have come a

557
00:30:42,680 --> 00:30:45,560
Speaker 1: long way with human beings, and so we're going to

558
00:30:45,600 --> 00:30:49,520
Speaker 1: spend the rest of the episode going through the human

559
00:30:49,600 --> 00:30:53,920
Speaker 1: body organ by organ as to what we have built

560
00:30:54,240 --> 00:30:57,080
Speaker 1: so far. But let's take a quick break and then

561
00:30:57,160 --> 00:30:59,560
Speaker 1: when we come back, we're gonna start off with human

562
00:30:59,680 --> 00:31:04,320
Speaker 1: skin and grown in vats. Everybody here. To do list

563
00:31:04,600 --> 00:31:06,960
Speaker 1: can seem out of control of times, so much to do,

564
00:31:07,240 --> 00:31:09,480
Speaker 1: so little time. But there's one thing you can check

565
00:31:09,520 --> 00:31:11,440
Speaker 1: off your to do list. That's going to the post

566
00:31:11,520 --> 00:31:14,200
Speaker 1: office thanks to stamps dot Com. With stamps dot Com,

567
00:31:14,280 --> 00:31:16,719
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568
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569
00:31:19,200 --> 00:31:21,880
Speaker 1: send you a digital scale. It will automatically calculate the

570
00:31:21,960 --> 00:31:24,760
Speaker 1: exact postage you need for any letter or package, any

571
00:31:24,840 --> 00:31:27,520
Speaker 1: class of mail. You'll never waste valuable time going to

572
00:31:27,600 --> 00:31:29,680
Speaker 1: the post office again. You can do everything right from

573
00:31:29,720 --> 00:31:32,800
Speaker 1: your desk with stamps dot Com, print the postage you need,

574
00:31:33,000 --> 00:31:34,760
Speaker 1: put it on your letter or package, and then just

575
00:31:35,040 --> 00:31:38,040
Speaker 1: hand it to your mail carrier. Wila, You're done. Now.

576
00:31:38,120 --> 00:31:40,160
Speaker 1: We use stamps dot com here and how stuff works.

577
00:31:40,240 --> 00:31:41,680
Speaker 1: So when we need to send off the odd bit

578
00:31:41,720 --> 00:31:44,080
Speaker 1: of merger correspondence, and we want you to try it

579
00:31:44,160 --> 00:31:46,640
Speaker 1: out as well, So right now, use our promo code

580
00:31:46,720 --> 00:31:50,000
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581
00:31:50,040 --> 00:31:52,400
Speaker 1: four week trial plus a hundred and ten dollar bonus

582
00:31:52,440 --> 00:31:54,760
Speaker 1: offtware that includes a digital scale and up to fifty

583
00:31:54,880 --> 00:31:57,640
Speaker 1: five dollars in free postage, so don't wait. Go to

584
00:31:57,720 --> 00:32:00,040
Speaker 1: stamps dot com before you do anything else. Click on

585
00:32:00,080 --> 00:32:01,920
Speaker 1: the microphone at the top of the home page and

586
00:32:02,000 --> 00:32:04,960
Speaker 1: type in stuff that stamps dot com inter stuff and

587
00:32:05,080 --> 00:32:12,320
Speaker 1: start mailing things. All right, we're back. So, as we

588
00:32:12,880 --> 00:32:16,040
Speaker 1: began to make our way through the human body here

589
00:32:16,120 --> 00:32:18,680
Speaker 1: through some of the various tissues and parts that were

590
00:32:18,720 --> 00:32:20,960
Speaker 1: able to grow, I think it is helpful to a

591
00:32:21,080 --> 00:32:24,560
Speaker 1: sort of thing that Frankenstein scenario building a person from

592
00:32:24,600 --> 00:32:27,880
Speaker 1: spare parts, but also maybe that terminator scenario as well,

593
00:32:28,000 --> 00:32:30,920
Speaker 1: like how much how much of our terminator could we

594
00:32:31,000 --> 00:32:34,520
Speaker 1: put together today? Yeah? Yeah, Well, let's start with the skin.

595
00:32:34,760 --> 00:32:38,960
Speaker 1: We could do that skin is very difficult because it

596
00:32:39,040 --> 00:32:42,240
Speaker 1: has seven different types of cells that are all arranged

597
00:32:42,280 --> 00:32:45,720
Speaker 1: in a complicated structure, and doctors have been trying to

598
00:32:45,840 --> 00:32:48,120
Speaker 1: do this since the seventies, mainly so they could help

599
00:32:48,280 --> 00:32:52,480
Speaker 1: burn victims. Now, Kearra tennisites our cells. They're one of

600
00:32:52,520 --> 00:32:55,560
Speaker 1: those seven cells in our skin that we're giving these

601
00:32:55,600 --> 00:32:59,320
Speaker 1: doctors the most trouble. They basically make their way to

602
00:32:59,360 --> 00:33:02,440
Speaker 1: the surface before we shed them off. But while they're

603
00:33:02,440 --> 00:33:04,479
Speaker 1: making their way to the surface, they emit a chemical

604
00:33:04,600 --> 00:33:08,840
Speaker 1: signal that activates skin growth, so they are crucial to

605
00:33:08,960 --> 00:33:14,440
Speaker 1: the skin regeneration process. James F. Burke and Ionis Janis

606
00:33:14,640 --> 00:33:17,680
Speaker 1: came up with the means that acted like like like

607
00:33:17,800 --> 00:33:21,400
Speaker 1: a skin covering. Basically while they were encouraging Kara Tenna

608
00:33:21,480 --> 00:33:24,200
Speaker 1: sites to do the thing that they do. They created

609
00:33:24,240 --> 00:33:28,160
Speaker 1: a layer of skin using collagen from cows and sharks,

610
00:33:28,680 --> 00:33:32,760
Speaker 1: together with a sugar molecule that served as their scaffolding.

611
00:33:32,800 --> 00:33:36,000
Speaker 1: So they're using the scaffolding method even with skin for

612
00:33:36,240 --> 00:33:40,720
Speaker 1: new growing cells. Once this new dermist had fully formed,

613
00:33:41,080 --> 00:33:44,520
Speaker 1: the temporary model underneath dissolved and the new cells grew

614
00:33:44,680 --> 00:33:48,280
Speaker 1: into its place. So basically the decelluarization process we were

615
00:33:48,280 --> 00:33:52,320
Speaker 1: talking about earlier. Now, even with this membrane, where do

616
00:33:52,440 --> 00:33:55,280
Speaker 1: you get the skin grafts from, right, if you move

617
00:33:55,360 --> 00:33:57,840
Speaker 1: it from another part of a patient's body, well, that

618
00:33:57,960 --> 00:34:00,440
Speaker 1: can be painful, as you might imagine, right, Although we

619
00:34:00,520 --> 00:34:02,800
Speaker 1: do that plenty of times, it's still it's it's not

620
00:34:02,880 --> 00:34:06,920
Speaker 1: a comfortable process. They also tried using cadaver skin. So

621
00:34:07,080 --> 00:34:09,919
Speaker 1: we talked about this in the penis transplant episode using

622
00:34:10,120 --> 00:34:13,840
Speaker 1: cadaver's penises, but in this case they tried taking the

623
00:34:13,960 --> 00:34:17,000
Speaker 1: skin off of dead people and applying it to living people.

624
00:34:18,080 --> 00:34:20,080
Speaker 1: That is right out of a horror story as well

625
00:34:20,160 --> 00:34:23,439
Speaker 1: to me, So we we're building a flesh column already. Basically. Yeah.

626
00:34:24,320 --> 00:34:27,680
Speaker 1: Unfortunately it didn't work very well. The immune system completely

627
00:34:27,760 --> 00:34:32,360
Speaker 1: rejected it. And because burn patients are already susceptible to infection,

628
00:34:32,719 --> 00:34:36,320
Speaker 1: they didn't want to use the usual immunosuppressive cocktail that

629
00:34:36,440 --> 00:34:39,840
Speaker 1: they throw into these people so that they can accept

630
00:34:39,920 --> 00:34:44,399
Speaker 1: the new organs. So this was their solution, grow new

631
00:34:44,520 --> 00:34:48,719
Speaker 1: skin from the patient's zone cells. They fed these cells nutrients,

632
00:34:49,000 --> 00:34:51,239
Speaker 1: then they let them take weeks to grow into a

633
00:34:51,400 --> 00:34:54,840
Speaker 1: sheet of skin that they then applied on top of

634
00:34:54,880 --> 00:34:59,839
Speaker 1: the burn area. This is sometimes treated with antibacterial pro

635
00:35:00,080 --> 00:35:04,080
Speaker 1: teens that reduce the risk of infection during the transplantation.

636
00:35:04,640 --> 00:35:08,879
Speaker 1: Now all this sounds awesome, right, but uh, growing skin

637
00:35:09,000 --> 00:35:12,560
Speaker 1: in a lab is real slow and it's super expensive.

638
00:35:12,640 --> 00:35:15,839
Speaker 1: But I've got two fun facts for you today, Loreale.

639
00:35:16,200 --> 00:35:19,880
Speaker 1: You know the cosmetics company, they actually hold the patent

640
00:35:20,160 --> 00:35:24,799
Speaker 1: for lab grown skin that is derived from skin that's

641
00:35:24,920 --> 00:35:29,520
Speaker 1: discarded during someone's plastic surgery. So that biomedical waste we

642
00:35:29,600 --> 00:35:33,360
Speaker 1: were talking about earlier can be used in place of

643
00:35:33,480 --> 00:35:39,080
Speaker 1: animals for testing reactions to cosmetics. So the pieces of

644
00:35:39,200 --> 00:35:44,920
Speaker 1: flesh removed from say Hollywood actor's face can then be

645
00:35:45,040 --> 00:35:47,480
Speaker 1: used to grow new skin, either for that actor or

646
00:35:47,600 --> 00:35:50,640
Speaker 1: presumably for someone else. Right, yeah, and then you you know,

647
00:35:50,840 --> 00:35:53,640
Speaker 1: rather than spraying hair spray into the eyes of like

648
00:35:53,719 --> 00:35:55,840
Speaker 1: a ferret or a raccoon or something like that, you

649
00:35:56,040 --> 00:36:00,520
Speaker 1: spray it on this thing. See how it reacts. Inner fact,

650
00:36:01,400 --> 00:36:04,360
Speaker 1: new skin can also come from the foreskin of a

651
00:36:04,520 --> 00:36:09,000
Speaker 1: circumcised infant. With just a little bit of skin like

652
00:36:09,120 --> 00:36:11,680
Speaker 1: maybe like the size of a postage stamp, you can

653
00:36:11,760 --> 00:36:16,200
Speaker 1: grow four acres of skin tissue in a lab. Now,

654
00:36:16,440 --> 00:36:20,440
Speaker 1: newborn cells don't rouse a host immune system, so this

655
00:36:20,640 --> 00:36:23,279
Speaker 1: is ideal. Right, It's sort of like the similar to

656
00:36:23,320 --> 00:36:27,480
Speaker 1: the embryonic stem cell research, right. Uh, they don't really

657
00:36:27,760 --> 00:36:30,000
Speaker 1: have any particular kind of cell things so that they

658
00:36:30,040 --> 00:36:33,920
Speaker 1: don't uh make the immune system unhappy and attack it.

659
00:36:34,640 --> 00:36:37,920
Speaker 1: So this may actually be better for grafting. So can

660
00:36:37,960 --> 00:36:41,080
Speaker 1: you imagine them like like okay, like either every time

661
00:36:41,160 --> 00:36:44,680
Speaker 1: somebody gets plastic surgery or every time a kid gets circumcised,

662
00:36:45,280 --> 00:36:47,600
Speaker 1: instead of just like throwing it in the trash or whatever,

663
00:36:47,800 --> 00:36:50,600
Speaker 1: they're like, you know, putting it in a biomedical bag

664
00:36:50,840 --> 00:36:53,400
Speaker 1: and shipping it to some lab somewhere so they can

665
00:36:53,480 --> 00:36:56,520
Speaker 1: use it to subsequently grow lots of skin. It's like

666
00:36:56,600 --> 00:36:59,319
Speaker 1: cutting out biscuits and a sheet of dough. You don't

667
00:36:59,360 --> 00:37:01,799
Speaker 1: just throw away extra dough. You call it back up

668
00:37:01,840 --> 00:37:03,760
Speaker 1: and you make one more biscuit out of it, bingo.

669
00:37:04,160 --> 00:37:07,719
Speaker 1: So so essentially here we we can see the skin

670
00:37:07,800 --> 00:37:10,360
Speaker 1: of our Frankenstein monster. We can see the skin of

671
00:37:10,400 --> 00:37:12,600
Speaker 1: the terminator. I mean, hey, maybe the eight hundred is

672
00:37:12,680 --> 00:37:20,319
Speaker 1: just nothing but foreskin exactly, foreskin or discarded plastic surgery waste. Yeah,

673
00:37:20,440 --> 00:37:24,680
Speaker 1: so he might might be a little lumpy, but yeah,

674
00:37:25,160 --> 00:37:27,080
Speaker 1: we can do it. We've we've got plenty of skin

675
00:37:27,160 --> 00:37:28,920
Speaker 1: to grow around four acres. I think we can put

676
00:37:28,960 --> 00:37:34,360
Speaker 1: four acres on our Frankenstein terminator. So up next, Obviously,

677
00:37:34,719 --> 00:37:36,359
Speaker 1: we want our terminator to be able to look people

678
00:37:36,360 --> 00:37:39,200
Speaker 1: in eyes when it buys corn, dogs and guns exactly,

679
00:37:39,200 --> 00:37:41,719
Speaker 1: and we also want our Frankenstein monster to be able

680
00:37:41,760 --> 00:37:44,000
Speaker 1: to see what it's doing. What can we do about eyes? Well,

681
00:37:44,160 --> 00:37:46,080
Speaker 1: the first thing we can do is make sure that

682
00:37:46,200 --> 00:37:49,520
Speaker 1: a terminator can cry. Uh, so we can build it

683
00:37:49,640 --> 00:37:52,840
Speaker 1: tear ducks. This is highly important. It was we discussed

684
00:37:52,880 --> 00:37:55,040
Speaker 1: in our the Creepy Post episode where we talk about

685
00:37:55,440 --> 00:37:59,800
Speaker 1: the loss of eyelids. Yeah. Absolutely. At the Tokyo University

686
00:37:59,840 --> 00:38:03,320
Speaker 1: of Science, they actually bioengineered the glands that produced tears

687
00:38:03,440 --> 00:38:06,239
Speaker 1: in saliva. Now, they didn't do it for a terminator.

688
00:38:06,280 --> 00:38:08,719
Speaker 1: They did it to help people who have chronically dry

689
00:38:08,840 --> 00:38:11,719
Speaker 1: eyes and mouths, so they could reinstall those glands and

690
00:38:11,800 --> 00:38:15,000
Speaker 1: help them out. UH. Even further, this seems to be

691
00:38:15,200 --> 00:38:17,960
Speaker 1: like an area of study that's prominent in Japan. There's

692
00:38:17,960 --> 00:38:21,080
Speaker 1: an article from Scientific American in two thousand twelve called

693
00:38:21,200 --> 00:38:25,360
Speaker 1: grow your Own Eye UH, and it's about further studies

694
00:38:25,360 --> 00:38:27,200
Speaker 1: in Japan that have shown that they can use stem

695
00:38:27,280 --> 00:38:30,839
Speaker 1: cells to actually grow a retina. UH. The same team

696
00:38:30,880 --> 00:38:34,600
Speaker 1: has also grown cortical tissue and part of a pituitary gland.

697
00:38:35,000 --> 00:38:37,720
Speaker 1: But they basically hope that their success with the retinal

698
00:38:37,760 --> 00:38:41,960
Speaker 1: tissue methods will help treat eye disorders like macular degeneration

699
00:38:42,040 --> 00:38:45,280
Speaker 1: in the future. Now, the method they use very similar

700
00:38:45,320 --> 00:38:48,120
Speaker 1: to what we talked about earlier. They put embryonic stem

701
00:38:48,200 --> 00:38:51,160
Speaker 1: cells in a culture dish, they expose them to chemicals

702
00:38:51,239 --> 00:38:54,560
Speaker 1: that influence eye formation, and then they wait and eventually

703
00:38:54,719 --> 00:38:58,440
Speaker 1: it forms into the shape of the optic cup of

704
00:38:58,560 --> 00:39:01,200
Speaker 1: an embryonic eye, and they use this is where they

705
00:39:01,280 --> 00:39:03,160
Speaker 1: use the floating culture I talked about, which is a

706
00:39:03,280 --> 00:39:07,319
Speaker 1: three dimensional culture that allows the cells to grow into

707
00:39:07,360 --> 00:39:10,560
Speaker 1: the complex topology of an eye rather than just like

708
00:39:10,600 --> 00:39:15,960
Speaker 1: a flat sheet. This structure also helps communicate between the

709
00:39:16,080 --> 00:39:20,000
Speaker 1: cells like they actually communicate better between one another, which

710
00:39:20,080 --> 00:39:24,040
Speaker 1: facilitates growth, which makes sense because we're three dimensional beings, right,

711
00:39:24,080 --> 00:39:27,680
Speaker 1: We're not. We're not flat two D creatures. So yeah,

712
00:39:28,000 --> 00:39:31,359
Speaker 1: so we've got eyes now on our robot slash Frankenstein.

713
00:39:32,000 --> 00:39:34,239
Speaker 1: So he's got eyes and skin, all right, So our

714
00:39:34,280 --> 00:39:37,120
Speaker 1: Frankenstein's monster might be able to see, might not, but

715
00:39:37,200 --> 00:39:39,799
Speaker 1: at the very at least our terminator might have eye

716
00:39:39,840 --> 00:39:41,879
Speaker 1: flesh covering a robot eye. Yeah, and it can cry,

717
00:39:42,920 --> 00:39:45,080
Speaker 1: but it's gonna probably need to hear, right if it

718
00:39:45,160 --> 00:39:48,400
Speaker 1: needs to, like hunt down it's a John Connor for instance,

719
00:39:48,440 --> 00:39:50,400
Speaker 1: Hearing is pretty important, right, or at least needs to

720
00:39:50,560 --> 00:39:51,960
Speaker 1: look like it has ears and needs to have at

721
00:39:52,040 --> 00:39:54,239
Speaker 1: least the physical structures of ears so they don't have

722
00:39:54,280 --> 00:39:55,759
Speaker 1: to wear a hat all the time, and that we've

723
00:39:55,800 --> 00:39:58,560
Speaker 1: been able to do for a while actually, um, but

724
00:39:58,880 --> 00:40:02,680
Speaker 1: by harvesting car artilage from a patient's ribs. We've actually

725
00:40:02,760 --> 00:40:06,880
Speaker 1: been able to reconstruct ears in the past. Physicians at

726
00:40:06,920 --> 00:40:10,080
Speaker 1: Cornell have actually used a three D printer to print

727
00:40:10,960 --> 00:40:15,319
Speaker 1: an ear with living cells from cows and collagen from

728
00:40:15,480 --> 00:40:18,400
Speaker 1: rat tails. So the let's sorry, let me slow that

729
00:40:18,440 --> 00:40:20,440
Speaker 1: down and repeat it again. The living cells come from

730
00:40:20,480 --> 00:40:23,960
Speaker 1: the cows, the collagen comes from the rat tails. Uh.

731
00:40:24,080 --> 00:40:26,440
Speaker 1: And then this infamous ear. You may have seen this

732
00:40:26,520 --> 00:40:29,319
Speaker 1: a year or two ago, the ear that was transplanted

733
00:40:29,360 --> 00:40:32,720
Speaker 1: onto a mouse's back to basically there is a picture

734
00:40:32,840 --> 00:40:35,040
Speaker 1: going around of this mouse running around with a human

735
00:40:35,120 --> 00:40:38,439
Speaker 1: ear on its back. Uh. They transplanted it on there

736
00:40:38,680 --> 00:40:40,719
Speaker 1: so they could ensure that the ear would retain its

737
00:40:40,760 --> 00:40:43,279
Speaker 1: shape before they actually put it on a human being. Now.

738
00:40:43,320 --> 00:40:46,120
Speaker 1: And another example of this that I love comes from

739
00:40:46,200 --> 00:40:50,640
Speaker 1: performance artist stell arc Okay with him so in two

740
00:40:50,680 --> 00:40:54,360
Speaker 1: thousand seven he had a cell cultivated ear surgically attached

741
00:40:54,440 --> 00:40:57,640
Speaker 1: to his left arm. Really and it's all part of it,

742
00:40:57,760 --> 00:41:01,120
Speaker 1: like I believe, ongoing. I I think he still has

743
00:41:01,160 --> 00:41:03,759
Speaker 1: the ear. Correct me if I'm wrong, listeners, But it's

744
00:41:03,760 --> 00:41:07,400
Speaker 1: all part of this ongoing a sort of body modification

745
00:41:08,360 --> 00:41:11,120
Speaker 1: performance are thing. So he started doing, yeah, like a

746
00:41:11,239 --> 00:41:16,520
Speaker 1: transhumanist style thing. That's interesting. Um, well, I wonder if

747
00:41:16,560 --> 00:41:18,279
Speaker 1: he did this method or if he did the old

748
00:41:18,320 --> 00:41:21,360
Speaker 1: school method, which is basically taking cow and cheap cells

749
00:41:21,800 --> 00:41:25,320
Speaker 1: and forming those into an ear around a flexible wire frame.

750
00:41:25,800 --> 00:41:29,280
Speaker 1: So you basically take like a pipe cleaners and grows

751
00:41:29,320 --> 00:41:34,200
Speaker 1: cells around it, turn it into an ear and attach it. So, okay,

752
00:41:34,320 --> 00:41:37,000
Speaker 1: we got ears, we got eyes, we got skin. Next

753
00:41:37,120 --> 00:41:40,759
Speaker 1: up windpipe. Now, believe it or not, this was the

754
00:41:41,080 --> 00:41:44,319
Speaker 1: first engineered organ that was implanted in a human being,

755
00:41:44,400 --> 00:41:46,960
Speaker 1: and it happened in two thousand and eight. Uh. They

756
00:41:47,040 --> 00:41:50,800
Speaker 1: grew the whimpipe from the patient's own stem cells and

757
00:41:50,920 --> 00:41:54,800
Speaker 1: this was the first step toward using the scaffolding technology

758
00:41:54,840 --> 00:41:57,200
Speaker 1: that we've been talking about this whole episode. Yeah, that

759
00:41:57,440 --> 00:42:01,000
Speaker 1: company that I mentioned earlier, Harvard Apparatus for Narrative Technology,

760
00:42:01,080 --> 00:42:04,479
Speaker 1: which is now his Biostage. They conducted several of these

761
00:42:04,600 --> 00:42:07,080
Speaker 1: each by growing the patient's own stem cells on a

762
00:42:07,200 --> 00:42:11,080
Speaker 1: lab made scaffold. And they've since re engineered the technique

763
00:42:11,239 --> 00:42:14,920
Speaker 1: into what they call their self frame technology, and this

764
00:42:15,080 --> 00:42:19,360
Speaker 1: is aimed to quote better stimulate the regenerative properties of

765
00:42:19,400 --> 00:42:22,320
Speaker 1: the organ, and they planned to move beyond the trachea

766
00:42:22,480 --> 00:42:26,520
Speaker 1: and the bronchos and tackle other organs as well, But yeah,

767
00:42:26,520 --> 00:42:30,399
Speaker 1: the trachea, the windpipe has an important place, and our

768
00:42:30,840 --> 00:42:34,440
Speaker 1: our ongoing development of synthetic organs. Yeah, I mean, we

769
00:42:34,640 --> 00:42:38,239
Speaker 1: are our terminator here. He's gonna need to at least

770
00:42:38,400 --> 00:42:40,440
Speaker 1: pretend to breathe somehow, and if he's got like a

771
00:42:40,520 --> 00:42:43,640
Speaker 1: voice box, you'll need to provide wind to go through

772
00:42:43,680 --> 00:42:46,520
Speaker 1: it somehow so they can do his Arnold schwartzen Aker top.

773
00:42:46,640 --> 00:42:49,120
Speaker 1: I think his tracky is going to be really top shelf,

774
00:42:49,200 --> 00:42:51,640
Speaker 1: to the point where if anyone questions his humanity, he

775
00:42:51,680 --> 00:42:53,239
Speaker 1: can say, of course I am human, look at my

776
00:42:53,920 --> 00:42:58,640
Speaker 1: Maybe that's why he has the accent. Why well, why yeah?

777
00:42:58,760 --> 00:43:03,400
Speaker 1: Why would they build a robot android terminator send it

778
00:43:03,520 --> 00:43:06,040
Speaker 1: back in time? But it has a really thick accent.

779
00:43:06,680 --> 00:43:08,839
Speaker 1: I always because I thought about this as a child,

780
00:43:09,840 --> 00:43:12,880
Speaker 1: and I always assumed it's a global war, right, And

781
00:43:13,080 --> 00:43:16,120
Speaker 1: maybe the computers just didn't really understand the diversity of humans,

782
00:43:16,160 --> 00:43:19,680
Speaker 1: and they were like, we must capture a human specimen

783
00:43:20,360 --> 00:43:24,000
Speaker 1: um manipulate, you know, capture its voice, capture its appearance.

784
00:43:24,080 --> 00:43:26,640
Speaker 1: And they got essentially Arnold Schwarzenegger, and they said, there

785
00:43:26,640 --> 00:43:29,239
Speaker 1: it is. That's what human sound like, that's what they

786
00:43:29,280 --> 00:43:32,240
Speaker 1: look like. That's why that's why he's so their specimen

787
00:43:32,320 --> 00:43:35,200
Speaker 1: is so ripped and so Austrian. Yeah, that makes sense.

788
00:43:35,280 --> 00:43:37,880
Speaker 1: And then along the line they became a little bit

789
00:43:37,960 --> 00:43:41,279
Speaker 1: more refined. They weren't really as muscular down the road

790
00:43:41,320 --> 00:43:46,200
Speaker 1: where they the other ones. And the woman from Terminator three,

791
00:43:46,640 --> 00:43:49,919
Speaker 1: they're a sleeker. Uh what's her name from the TV

792
00:43:50,000 --> 00:43:54,160
Speaker 1: show the Sericona Chronicles, just like a ballerina. Uh, and um,

793
00:43:54,719 --> 00:43:57,600
Speaker 1: I have to have not seen the latest one, the

794
00:43:57,719 --> 00:44:05,120
Speaker 1: Genesis one with Calisi and uh, who's the terminator? Yeah? Yeah,

795
00:44:05,239 --> 00:44:07,440
Speaker 1: so maybe they explained in that one. If somebody's out

796
00:44:07,480 --> 00:44:10,600
Speaker 1: there going, oh, you guys gotta see Terminator Genesis four

797
00:44:10,640 --> 00:44:13,600
Speaker 1: star movie, let us know. I saw it on an airplane.

798
00:44:13,800 --> 00:44:16,360
Speaker 1: You saw it. Yeah, it's a great airplane movie. I

799
00:44:16,440 --> 00:44:22,600
Speaker 1: him watching Terminator Genesis on an airplane. Okay, Um, so

800
00:44:22,800 --> 00:44:26,640
Speaker 1: next comes up. Our terminator needs arms and legs if

801
00:44:26,680 --> 00:44:29,719
Speaker 1: it's going to run around and grab people and you know,

802
00:44:30,080 --> 00:44:32,759
Speaker 1: jump and do all the things that it does right. Well,

803
00:44:33,200 --> 00:44:39,520
Speaker 1: in Massachusetts General Hospital actually grew entire rat arms in

804
00:44:39,600 --> 00:44:42,640
Speaker 1: a Petrie dish. You can actually watch this video on

805
00:44:42,760 --> 00:44:45,680
Speaker 1: YouTube and it is it's nuts. They use the same

806
00:44:45,800 --> 00:44:49,440
Speaker 1: decelluarization technique we've been talking about, where the living rat

807
00:44:49,640 --> 00:44:53,480
Speaker 1: donate cells to regrow organ tissue. And you watch it

808
00:44:53,640 --> 00:44:57,320
Speaker 1: in a in this video in um what do they do?

809
00:44:57,400 --> 00:44:59,719
Speaker 1: They speed they speed up the frame rate and it

810
00:44:59,800 --> 00:45:05,720
Speaker 1: can tains bones, cartilage, blood, vessels, tendons, ligaments, and nerves.

811
00:45:06,239 --> 00:45:10,200
Speaker 1: So they're hoping this will make way for transplants for amputees.

812
00:45:10,719 --> 00:45:13,719
Speaker 1: So for right now are our terminator would just have

813
00:45:14,040 --> 00:45:19,399
Speaker 1: little rat legs and arms. But down we're getting close. Yeah,

814
00:45:19,440 --> 00:45:21,760
Speaker 1: the prognosis I think is far better for the terminator

815
00:45:21,800 --> 00:45:26,040
Speaker 1: as opposed to the Frankenstein monster, because because the mechanical

816
00:45:26,239 --> 00:45:28,520
Speaker 1: exoskeleton will provide the movement and you can as long

817
00:45:28,560 --> 00:45:32,120
Speaker 1: as you get the appearance of those gigantic arnold muscles,

818
00:45:32,400 --> 00:45:34,240
Speaker 1: and then we've got yea and that we could probably

819
00:45:34,320 --> 00:45:37,600
Speaker 1: do brains. How's this thing going to think? Well, if

820
00:45:37,600 --> 00:45:39,800
Speaker 1: it's terminator has probably got a computer brain, right, but

821
00:45:39,880 --> 00:45:44,759
Speaker 1: what about Frankenstein. Well, in scientists in Vienna at the

822
00:45:44,840 --> 00:45:49,920
Speaker 1: Institute of Molecular Biotechnology actually created a miniature brain in

823
00:45:50,080 --> 00:45:53,320
Speaker 1: their lab. Now this was the size of an embryo

824
00:45:53,480 --> 00:45:56,200
Speaker 1: brain at nine weeks old, so it's pretty small, but

825
00:45:56,800 --> 00:46:00,120
Speaker 1: it had active neurons in the same organizational structure or

826
00:46:00,200 --> 00:46:02,880
Speaker 1: as our brains. And they used stem cells to grow this.

827
00:46:03,680 --> 00:46:08,759
Speaker 1: So we've got a tency, tiny little brain inside our flesh. Gollumn. Now,

828
00:46:09,560 --> 00:46:12,200
Speaker 1: what if we want our flesh column to be a woman?

829
00:46:12,600 --> 00:46:17,360
Speaker 1: Right like the female terminators that we've seen that we

830
00:46:17,440 --> 00:46:20,239
Speaker 1: have seen female terminators, And as far as Frankenstein goes,

831
00:46:20,440 --> 00:46:24,359
Speaker 1: we know Frankstein's monsters. We know from the novel uh

832
00:46:24,440 --> 00:46:26,480
Speaker 1: and some of the film adaptations that he's going to

833
00:46:26,560 --> 00:46:28,759
Speaker 1: ask for a mate. We need to be prepared to

834
00:46:28,800 --> 00:46:32,640
Speaker 1: create that mate. Uh. So we're gonna need this breasts. Well,

835
00:46:32,800 --> 00:46:36,279
Speaker 1: we can grow breasts. At the Heimholtz Center for Health

836
00:46:36,360 --> 00:46:41,440
Speaker 1: and Environmental Research in Germany, researchers have grown again miniature

837
00:46:41,800 --> 00:46:45,360
Speaker 1: mammary glands in order to study the development of breast cancer.

838
00:46:46,160 --> 00:46:49,200
Speaker 1: Same same thing. They took healthy tissue from a woman

839
00:46:49,320 --> 00:46:52,480
Speaker 1: undergoing breast reduction surgery, so as somebody who's already getting

840
00:46:52,520 --> 00:46:55,200
Speaker 1: rid of these cells, they turned that into a gel

841
00:46:55,760 --> 00:46:58,640
Speaker 1: that allowed the cells to divide and spread the same

842
00:46:58,719 --> 00:47:02,120
Speaker 1: way that memory glands do. You during huberty and they

843
00:47:02,200 --> 00:47:05,719
Speaker 1: grew outwards. I mean it's the tissue, right, They're not

844
00:47:05,760 --> 00:47:08,360
Speaker 1: actually growing abreast. It's not like it has a nipple

845
00:47:08,440 --> 00:47:09,960
Speaker 1: on the end of it, right, But it is the

846
00:47:10,040 --> 00:47:12,200
Speaker 1: same kind of tissues, so they can do tests on it.

847
00:47:12,680 --> 00:47:15,279
Speaker 1: So it's theoretically we could use this and attach it

848
00:47:15,400 --> 00:47:19,080
Speaker 1: to our our terminator golum. Yeah, and you know I should.

849
00:47:19,120 --> 00:47:22,000
Speaker 1: I'm also I should mention that of course with humans

850
00:47:22,400 --> 00:47:26,719
Speaker 1: particularly you know humans, human males can lactate. Yeah, you know,

851
00:47:26,840 --> 00:47:29,160
Speaker 1: if the conditions are right. So we actually have a

852
00:47:29,239 --> 00:47:32,320
Speaker 1: great brain stuff episode on why do men have nipples,

853
00:47:32,800 --> 00:47:35,600
Speaker 1: both on the audio podcast that I host and on

854
00:47:35,640 --> 00:47:38,439
Speaker 1: the video series. Yeah, I mean it's a fascinating topic.

855
00:47:38,480 --> 00:47:39,879
Speaker 1: I think there's an older stuff to blow your mind

856
00:47:39,920 --> 00:47:42,800
Speaker 1: that goes into it as well. But but yeah, essentially

857
00:47:42,960 --> 00:47:47,320
Speaker 1: then the male uh uh equipment is just as functional

858
00:47:47,360 --> 00:47:49,600
Speaker 1: as the female equipment. It just takes a little more

859
00:47:49,600 --> 00:47:52,480
Speaker 1: to kick start it. Unless you're a fruit bat. Fruit bat,

860
00:47:52,600 --> 00:47:55,320
Speaker 1: male fruit bats can actually lactate and do lactates for

861
00:47:55,560 --> 00:47:59,000
Speaker 1: normal uh. You know, child rearing technologies are so much

862
00:47:59,080 --> 00:48:01,479
Speaker 1: far further out of us, I know in many ways.

863
00:48:01,600 --> 00:48:04,759
Speaker 1: You know, sometimes the the Arnold terminators take on a

864
00:48:05,600 --> 00:48:08,719
Speaker 1: a nurturing role in the mid So it would be good.

865
00:48:08,800 --> 00:48:10,920
Speaker 1: I I don't know if Skynett thought of this, but

866
00:48:11,040 --> 00:48:14,319
Speaker 1: it would be good if, if, if the determinator could

867
00:48:14,680 --> 00:48:17,520
Speaker 1: activate its manory glance. Hey wait a minute, maybe that's

868
00:48:17,560 --> 00:48:19,880
Speaker 1: why his pecks are so big. He's just got like

869
00:48:20,160 --> 00:48:24,000
Speaker 1: juicy pecks. Yeah. Maybe Skynet was like, all right, can

870
00:48:24,080 --> 00:48:26,279
Speaker 1: you lactate though? That's what humans do? And they're like,

871
00:48:26,280 --> 00:48:28,440
Speaker 1: all right, make sure it's in there. Wow. Man, we

872
00:48:28,520 --> 00:48:31,920
Speaker 1: are uncovering so much about James Cameron's legacy today here

873
00:48:31,960 --> 00:48:35,399
Speaker 1: on the show. Okay, next up, bladders. So we talked

874
00:48:35,400 --> 00:48:39,239
Speaker 1: already bladders are possible. The Wake Forest Institute for Regenerative

875
00:48:39,440 --> 00:48:44,800
Speaker 1: Medicine in Winston Salem, North Carolina, they've grown everything from muscles, blood, vessels,

876
00:48:44,800 --> 00:48:49,680
Speaker 1: and skin to a complete urinary bladder and they've implanted

877
00:48:49,719 --> 00:48:53,840
Speaker 1: these and more than two dozen children and young adults.

878
00:48:53,880 --> 00:48:56,880
Speaker 1: And I was like, wow, that's why. Uh, And it

879
00:48:56,960 --> 00:48:59,640
Speaker 1: turns out it's because they were all born with defective bladders.

880
00:49:00,320 --> 00:49:05,239
Speaker 1: These are the first lab generated human organs implanted in humans. Now,

881
00:49:05,600 --> 00:49:09,080
Speaker 1: this seems to contradict the windpipe thing from earlier. I

882
00:49:09,160 --> 00:49:12,560
Speaker 1: think the wind pipe was actually the first one. But

883
00:49:12,719 --> 00:49:15,040
Speaker 1: these bladders are more along the lines of like an

884
00:49:15,160 --> 00:49:20,319
Speaker 1: actual organ, whereas the wind pipe is like a structure structure. Yeah. Um,

885
00:49:20,480 --> 00:49:22,600
Speaker 1: so their hope is that this will become the standard

886
00:49:23,000 --> 00:49:26,640
Speaker 1: procedure for dealing with people with bladder defects. But so

887
00:49:27,000 --> 00:49:30,920
Speaker 1: now our flush column. He's got a bladder, and uh,

888
00:49:31,000 --> 00:49:33,560
Speaker 1: while we're at it, why don't we give him some kidneys? Uh?

889
00:49:33,640 --> 00:49:36,719
Speaker 1: So kidneys. Remember mass general, they were growing all kinds

890
00:49:36,760 --> 00:49:40,880
Speaker 1: of stuff. They've also grown kidneys using the decelluarization process. Uh.

891
00:49:41,000 --> 00:49:43,880
Speaker 1: And guess what they did with that kidney. They attached

892
00:49:43,920 --> 00:49:48,200
Speaker 1: it to a rat. They they even produced urine once

893
00:49:48,320 --> 00:49:50,160
Speaker 1: they were attached to the rats. So there you go.

894
00:49:50,600 --> 00:49:53,200
Speaker 1: So you've got your bladder and your kidneys. So this, uh,

895
00:49:53,360 --> 00:49:57,919
Speaker 1: this thing can at least mimic the effect of urination. Yeah.

896
00:49:58,080 --> 00:50:01,360
Speaker 1: Essential for our Frankenstone's mons, but also for the terminator

897
00:50:01,440 --> 00:50:04,400
Speaker 1: if its skin is you know, it's never really explained

898
00:50:04,440 --> 00:50:07,160
Speaker 1: how that skin stays alive, how it stays, how it

899
00:50:07,440 --> 00:50:10,719
Speaker 1: produces blood, but presumably it might need to drink water

900
00:50:11,160 --> 00:50:13,960
Speaker 1: in order to stay hydrated and look like something other

901
00:50:14,000 --> 00:50:16,600
Speaker 1: than a mummy. Yeah, you would think and if the

902
00:50:16,800 --> 00:50:19,279
Speaker 1: skin and the muscle tissue that we've grown to put

903
00:50:19,360 --> 00:50:21,839
Speaker 1: on this thing has blood vessels, we're going to need

904
00:50:21,960 --> 00:50:25,840
Speaker 1: something to pump blood through those vessels. Right, Well, we

905
00:50:25,920 --> 00:50:29,880
Speaker 1: can grow artificial hearts. At the University of Pittsburgh, scientists

906
00:50:30,080 --> 00:50:33,880
Speaker 1: used skin cells from humans to create heart cells and

907
00:50:33,960 --> 00:50:37,920
Speaker 1: then they developed those into heart muscle, and once you

908
00:50:38,120 --> 00:50:43,560
Speaker 1: supplied them with blood, these little mini hearts actually contracted spontaneously.

909
00:50:44,000 --> 00:50:46,640
Speaker 1: This made me think of the strain, which we've covered

910
00:50:46,680 --> 00:50:48,560
Speaker 1: on the show before. But you know, like the guy

911
00:50:48,719 --> 00:50:51,319
Speaker 1: keeps his wife's heart in a bottle and he learns

912
00:50:51,400 --> 00:50:53,840
Speaker 1: and he like drops like one drop of blood into it,

913
00:50:53,960 --> 00:50:56,000
Speaker 1: and it and it starts contracting. This is what I

914
00:50:56,120 --> 00:50:59,839
Speaker 1: wasn't mentioning. This creepy heart, little tail tale heart thrown

915
00:50:59,880 --> 00:51:02,440
Speaker 1: in there as well. Um, and guess what they did.

916
00:51:03,080 --> 00:51:06,120
Speaker 1: They grew this human heart on a mouse's heart. Now

917
00:51:06,160 --> 00:51:09,040
Speaker 1: I can't imagine what that looked like or what the

918
00:51:09,080 --> 00:51:12,920
Speaker 1: procedure was, but it worked, and we could theoretically advance

919
00:51:13,040 --> 00:51:16,600
Speaker 1: this technique to replace heart tissue when somebody has a

920
00:51:16,640 --> 00:51:19,400
Speaker 1: heart attack. Uh. And the reason why this is important,

921
00:51:19,480 --> 00:51:20,920
Speaker 1: like a lot of you are probably out there thinking, well,

922
00:51:20,920 --> 00:51:23,000
Speaker 1: wait a minut. I've seen artificial hearts has been around

923
00:51:23,040 --> 00:51:27,399
Speaker 1: for decades, right, they are, but standard artificial hearts are

924
00:51:27,600 --> 00:51:30,080
Speaker 1: only used when a patient is about to die because

925
00:51:30,160 --> 00:51:34,239
Speaker 1: they don't last very long. So this kind of artificially

926
00:51:34,400 --> 00:51:37,560
Speaker 1: grown heart tissue would be much better for our purposes.

927
00:51:38,719 --> 00:51:42,200
Speaker 1: And finally, what brought us to this whole episode to

928
00:51:42,280 --> 00:51:47,000
Speaker 1: begin with artificial genitals? Well, on one hand, our Frankenstein's

929
00:51:47,000 --> 00:51:50,080
Speaker 1: monster needs genitals. Um, if it is going to be

930
00:51:50,400 --> 00:51:55,440
Speaker 1: an approximate convincement. Yeah, and I assume the terminator has genitals.

931
00:51:55,480 --> 00:51:57,480
Speaker 1: We never see them, but it is implied that they

932
00:51:57,520 --> 00:52:00,279
Speaker 1: are there. Yeah, I just yeah, there's a lot of

933
00:52:01,000 --> 00:52:04,719
Speaker 1: nude Arnold Schwarzenegger, but you never really see any any frontness. Huh.

934
00:52:05,120 --> 00:52:07,239
Speaker 1: It's usually shot in such a way. I don't know.

935
00:52:07,320 --> 00:52:10,600
Speaker 1: Maybe he's like a Kendall down there, but PACK doubt it. Uh.

936
00:52:10,880 --> 00:52:13,760
Speaker 1: In two thousand and eight that we've mentioned these guys already,

937
00:52:13,800 --> 00:52:17,480
Speaker 1: the Wake Institute for Regenerative Medicine, they were able to

938
00:52:17,640 --> 00:52:24,279
Speaker 1: grow artificial penises for twelve rabbits. Now you're probably saying,

939
00:52:24,360 --> 00:52:28,000
Speaker 1: wait a minute, what rabbits. Well, eight of these rabbits

940
00:52:28,080 --> 00:52:32,320
Speaker 1: were actually able to ejaculate with these artificially grown penises,

941
00:52:32,880 --> 00:52:36,759
Speaker 1: four of them were able to produce offspring with them. Now,

942
00:52:36,840 --> 00:52:39,080
Speaker 1: the team this is the same team that announced the

943
00:52:39,080 --> 00:52:42,560
Speaker 1: bioengineered bladder that we talked about earlier, but they followed

944
00:52:42,640 --> 00:52:48,520
Speaker 1: this up by giving four women bioengineered vaginas. And actually

945
00:52:48,840 --> 00:52:52,520
Speaker 1: the artificially grown penis is trickier the penis as we

946
00:52:52,600 --> 00:52:56,280
Speaker 1: talked about in our penis transplant episode. It is structurally complex,

947
00:52:56,440 --> 00:52:58,640
Speaker 1: it has a dense mass of cells, and you've got

948
00:52:58,719 --> 00:53:01,359
Speaker 1: that spongy tissue that unique to it, so it's really

949
00:53:01,440 --> 00:53:06,240
Speaker 1: difficult to replicate. So they basically used the scaffolding technique

950
00:53:06,239 --> 00:53:10,000
Speaker 1: that we talked about earlier. They took a donor's penis,

951
00:53:10,400 --> 00:53:13,719
Speaker 1: soaked it into detergent and enzymes, and washed away all

952
00:53:13,800 --> 00:53:16,360
Speaker 1: of the donor's cells. What they're left with is the

953
00:53:16,480 --> 00:53:20,320
Speaker 1: collagen scaffold of the penis. They recede it with the

954
00:53:20,360 --> 00:53:23,719
Speaker 1: patient's own cells that are grown in a culture, both

955
00:53:24,080 --> 00:53:28,799
Speaker 1: muscle cells and endo field cells. And even though they've

956
00:53:29,000 --> 00:53:32,279
Speaker 1: engineered half a dozen of these penises, they're not ready

957
00:53:32,360 --> 00:53:34,719
Speaker 1: to do any transplants just yet. So based on our

958
00:53:34,719 --> 00:53:37,840
Speaker 1: penis transplant episode, we're still stuck with the methodology that

959
00:53:37,880 --> 00:53:40,920
Speaker 1: we talked about there. They need to assess the safety

960
00:53:41,000 --> 00:53:44,360
Speaker 1: and effectiveness of this first. They literally have a machine

961
00:53:44,400 --> 00:53:48,680
Speaker 1: that they use to squish, stretch, and twist these artificially

962
00:53:48,719 --> 00:53:51,279
Speaker 1: grown penises to make sure that they stand up to

963
00:53:51,360 --> 00:53:53,279
Speaker 1: everyday life. So it's kind of like the machine it

964
00:53:53,360 --> 00:53:58,279
Speaker 1: ikea that like pommels a chair constantly. Yeah, yeah, exactly. Uh.

965
00:53:58,520 --> 00:54:02,200
Speaker 1: They test erections in these things by pumping fluid through them.

966
00:54:02,560 --> 00:54:05,960
Speaker 1: In the short term, they're looking at growing small penis

967
00:54:06,200 --> 00:54:12,160
Speaker 1: parts to help replace partially damaged organs, usually from degradation

968
00:54:12,320 --> 00:54:15,839
Speaker 1: at old age. Now let's talk about those vaginas to write.

969
00:54:15,960 --> 00:54:18,200
Speaker 1: You know, we don't just have to give this terminator

970
00:54:18,239 --> 00:54:20,200
Speaker 1: a penis. We could give it a vagina. Hey, maybe

971
00:54:20,200 --> 00:54:23,239
Speaker 1: we give it both? Maybe both? Right? Um? Well, yeah,

972
00:54:23,800 --> 00:54:26,759
Speaker 1: For those four patients that I talked about earlier, they

973
00:54:26,840 --> 00:54:31,640
Speaker 1: were assessed for this, uh, and they had vaginal aplasia,

974
00:54:32,160 --> 00:54:34,640
Speaker 1: and so a similar technique was used to the one

975
00:54:34,719 --> 00:54:38,480
Speaker 1: above described for the bladders, the one that I mentioned earlier,

976
00:54:38,560 --> 00:54:42,239
Speaker 1: the same Wake Forest Institute structure, basically scaffolding. In two

977
00:54:42,280 --> 00:54:45,759
Speaker 1: thousand five, they implanted the first of vagina. Eight years later,

978
00:54:46,040 --> 00:54:49,360
Speaker 1: all four of the recipients have the normal structure and

979
00:54:49,680 --> 00:54:54,160
Speaker 1: function in these artificial vaginas. These patients were young at

980
00:54:54,200 --> 00:54:56,680
Speaker 1: the time that they were implanted there, thirteen to eighteen

981
00:54:56,760 --> 00:55:01,960
Speaker 1: years old. The scientists involved took volvar biopsies and then

982
00:55:02,040 --> 00:55:05,600
Speaker 1: they cultured and expanded those cells outwards, same same process

983
00:55:05,640 --> 00:55:07,880
Speaker 1: basically that we've been talking about here. There's been no

984
00:55:08,360 --> 00:55:12,120
Speaker 1: long term post operative complications. And the areas that they've

985
00:55:12,200 --> 00:55:19,440
Speaker 1: tested these in include desire arousal lubrication for orgasms, satisfaction,

986
00:55:19,560 --> 00:55:22,319
Speaker 1: and whether or not they were able to have painless intercourse,

987
00:55:23,320 --> 00:55:28,399
Speaker 1: all of which succeeded from the research. Yeah, so there

988
00:55:28,480 --> 00:55:29,800
Speaker 1: we have it. I mean, that's that's the end of

989
00:55:29,840 --> 00:55:32,080
Speaker 1: our organs list, as far as we could find in

990
00:55:32,120 --> 00:55:35,759
Speaker 1: the research. So we got a brain, ears, and eye

991
00:55:36,160 --> 00:55:41,439
Speaker 1: or two eyes, tear ducts, a windpipe, skin, little tiny

992
00:55:41,560 --> 00:55:45,040
Speaker 1: limbs or if we if we built out the exoskeleton,

993
00:55:45,080 --> 00:55:47,200
Speaker 1: it can have normal limbs with the skin stretched over it.

994
00:55:47,480 --> 00:55:50,240
Speaker 1: It's got a bladder and some kidneys, it's got some genitals,

995
00:55:50,960 --> 00:55:53,400
Speaker 1: so we're missing a lot of stuff. We don't have

996
00:55:53,560 --> 00:55:59,440
Speaker 1: lungs yet, you know, and everything else. So the prognosis

997
00:55:59,560 --> 00:56:01,640
Speaker 1: is better for the terminators for our frame, but you

998
00:56:01,800 --> 00:56:08,320
Speaker 1: could like build a semi convincing exterior fake human. I

999
00:56:08,400 --> 00:56:11,160
Speaker 1: think so. Um, you know, I can't help but think

1000
00:56:11,200 --> 00:56:12,920
Speaker 1: back to the episode that Joe and I did on

1001
00:56:13,040 --> 00:56:15,440
Speaker 1: the Science of doone. Yeah, it was a two partner

1002
00:56:15,520 --> 00:56:17,080
Speaker 1: and one of them we talked a little bit about

1003
00:56:17,160 --> 00:56:19,320
Speaker 1: the skin dancer. I don't know if you're familiar with this,

1004
00:56:20,160 --> 00:56:24,640
Speaker 1: that one. They're essentially shape shifters, like engineered shape shifter

1005
00:56:24,880 --> 00:56:28,840
Speaker 1: organisms that work for the benefit. These aren't in the

1006
00:56:28,920 --> 00:56:31,319
Speaker 1: movies then, I don't think there's one that shows up

1007
00:56:31,360 --> 00:56:34,719
Speaker 1: in the Sci Fi channel. Um, but there were a

1008
00:56:34,800 --> 00:56:37,520
Speaker 1: couple of different sources where people said, all right, how

1009
00:56:37,560 --> 00:56:40,440
Speaker 1: would you make a humanoid? How would you engineer a

1010
00:56:40,560 --> 00:56:44,080
Speaker 1: human to change its shape, to change its sex even

1011
00:56:44,840 --> 00:56:48,800
Speaker 1: And one of the two theories involved like engineering essentially

1012
00:56:50,680 --> 00:56:54,040
Speaker 1: what appears to be a vagina, but the vagina can

1013
00:56:54,160 --> 00:56:57,640
Speaker 1: open and then male genitalia descent through it, so it

1014
00:56:57,680 --> 00:57:02,560
Speaker 1: would be all about just the appearance rather than a functionality. Yeah,

1015
00:57:02,719 --> 00:57:05,600
Speaker 1: but some of this research that we would just discussed

1016
00:57:05,640 --> 00:57:08,719
Speaker 1: here he's getting Oh yeah, we can get very very

1017
00:57:08,800 --> 00:57:12,239
Speaker 1: similar to that. Yeah, yeah, definitely. Well, those of you

1018
00:57:12,400 --> 00:57:14,279
Speaker 1: out there who are listening and made it this far

1019
00:57:14,480 --> 00:57:18,280
Speaker 1: through our our construction of our flesh. Goleumn Uh. I

1020
00:57:18,360 --> 00:57:20,880
Speaker 1: want to hear from you. Did we miss some organs

1021
00:57:20,920 --> 00:57:23,600
Speaker 1: because this was everything that we could find. Are there

1022
00:57:23,680 --> 00:57:25,960
Speaker 1: other organs out there that have been artificially grown that

1023
00:57:26,040 --> 00:57:28,200
Speaker 1: we didn't hear about? That we should add to the list.

1024
00:57:28,360 --> 00:57:30,880
Speaker 1: Let us know. Uh? And I want to know from

1025
00:57:30,960 --> 00:57:34,600
Speaker 1: you too, would you eat artificially grown meat? Uh? And

1026
00:57:34,800 --> 00:57:39,240
Speaker 1: in particular, would you eat artificially grown human meat? Would

1027
00:57:39,320 --> 00:57:44,919
Speaker 1: you eat flesh from a T eight hundreds exo skeleton? Yeah? Yeah?

1028
00:57:45,000 --> 00:57:47,840
Speaker 1: Would you eat that? Seer it up that? I wonder

1029
00:57:47,880 --> 00:57:49,640
Speaker 1: why they haven't done that in the movie. It seems like, yeah,

1030
00:57:50,200 --> 00:57:53,960
Speaker 1: that trap somewhere they just like, yeah, whips off some

1031
00:57:54,440 --> 00:57:57,280
Speaker 1: forearm bacon and fries it up. Yeah. I believe, Like

1032
00:57:57,880 --> 00:58:00,120
Speaker 1: again my comic Nerd coming out, I'm pretty sure or

1033
00:58:00,240 --> 00:58:03,720
Speaker 1: Wolverine's done that in the comments before well, that that

1034
00:58:03,920 --> 00:58:06,480
Speaker 1: raises so many quests cut off his own flesh, cooked

1035
00:58:06,520 --> 00:58:08,400
Speaker 1: it and eating it while it regrows so that he

1036
00:58:08,480 --> 00:58:12,640
Speaker 1: can sustain himself. That I feel like there's some basic

1037
00:58:12,720 --> 00:58:16,240
Speaker 1: problems in area, but they we'll have to discuss those

1038
00:58:16,280 --> 00:58:20,479
Speaker 1: another time. The auto cannibalism, um of Wolverine. Well, where

1039
00:58:20,600 --> 00:58:22,840
Speaker 1: can they write it to us to let us know

1040
00:58:23,000 --> 00:58:26,720
Speaker 1: about their thoughts on all of these depraved ways to

1041
00:58:26,840 --> 00:58:29,160
Speaker 1: eat things? Well, of course you can always go to

1042
00:58:29,280 --> 00:58:31,400
Speaker 1: stuff to Blow your Mind dot com. That is the mothership,

1043
00:58:31,640 --> 00:58:34,160
Speaker 1: and that's where you'll find links out to various social

1044
00:58:34,200 --> 00:58:36,200
Speaker 1: media accounts that we're on. So just Facebook and Twitter

1045
00:58:36,280 --> 00:58:38,080
Speaker 1: where bow the mind and both of those you also

1046
00:58:38,120 --> 00:58:42,240
Speaker 1: find us on Tumbler and Instagram. Um, and also stuff

1047
00:58:42,240 --> 00:58:44,680
Speaker 1: to way Mine dot com just has all the podcast episodes,

1048
00:58:44,720 --> 00:58:47,840
Speaker 1: all the videos, blog posts, you name it, and hopefully

1049
00:58:48,080 --> 00:58:52,240
Speaker 1: uh hopefully, um, certainly it is going to be redesigned

1050
00:58:52,280 --> 00:58:54,280
Speaker 1: soon you know, will look all the snap here. And

1051
00:58:54,360 --> 00:58:56,760
Speaker 1: if you want to write to us about artificial organs

1052
00:58:56,800 --> 00:58:59,240
Speaker 1: the old fashioned way, you can hit us up at

1053
00:58:59,320 --> 00:59:10,960
Speaker 1: below the Mind at houstof works dot com for more

1054
00:59:11,000 --> 00:59:13,640
Speaker 1: on this and thousands of other topics. Isn't how Stuff

1055
00:59:13,640 --> 00:59:25,880
Speaker 1: Works dot com The big