WEBVTT - Pieces of a Human: The Science of Artificial Organs 0:00:03.080 --> 0:00:05.800 Welcome to stuff to Blow your Mind from how stop 0:00:05.880 --> 0:00:15.240 works dot com. Hey, welcome to stuff to blow your mind. 0:00:15.240 --> 0:00:18.759 My name is Robert Lamb and I am Christian Sager. Hey, Robert, 0:00:18.880 --> 0:00:24.120 would you eat an artificially grown organ? Well? The phrase 0:00:24.200 --> 0:00:26.320 is a number of questions, doesn't it is it? Is 0:00:26.360 --> 0:00:29.400 it an animal organ, a human organ? Let's say it's uh, 0:00:29.560 --> 0:00:33.040 let's say it's an animal organ for now. Let's say 0:00:33.080 --> 0:00:37.720 it's chicken. It's a chicken. It's just a slab of chicken. Uh. 0:00:37.720 --> 0:00:40.960 And it's been nice and um fried up. It's covered 0:00:40.960 --> 0:00:45.080 in in juicy oils and breading, and there's some butter 0:00:45.159 --> 0:00:48.440 and spices on there. But you know this didn't come 0:00:48.479 --> 0:00:50.800 from a real chicken. It was grown in a lab. Okay, 0:00:50.840 --> 0:00:52.840 So on one level, I don't have to worry about 0:00:53.280 --> 0:00:55.680 I was the chicken humanely raised? How did it live? 0:00:55.720 --> 0:00:59.480 How did it die? A was it's diet? Yeah? These 0:00:59.520 --> 0:01:02.560 were just grown from cells scraped off a chicken. Okay. 0:01:02.760 --> 0:01:04.480 But then I have to worry about that side of it. 0:01:04.560 --> 0:01:08.760 This is something artificial. It's something that has been grown 0:01:08.760 --> 0:01:12.280 in a vat or or or grown over some scaffolding. 0:01:12.280 --> 0:01:14.480 As well to discussing this episode. So how am I 0:01:14.480 --> 0:01:15.960 supposed to feel about that? And then how am I 0:01:16.000 --> 0:01:18.920 supposed to feel about eating needed all in this scenario? 0:01:19.000 --> 0:01:20.560 Is it? Is it worth it? Why am I going 0:01:20.600 --> 0:01:24.840 to these means, uh, these extremes to eat this food 0:01:24.880 --> 0:01:26.920 to get this protein when I could conceivable we get 0:01:26.920 --> 0:01:30.039 it from something that is a little less uh Frankensteiny 0:01:30.120 --> 0:01:33.160 if you will. Yeah, and it raises a lot of questions, 0:01:33.360 --> 0:01:36.360 a lot of Frankensteiny questions, as we're gonna talk about 0:01:36.360 --> 0:01:40.600 throughout this episode today. We are talking about artificial organs 0:01:40.959 --> 0:01:45.120 fresh from the vat, grown grown in a vat. Uh. 0:01:45.160 --> 0:01:47.480 And this is sort of a spinoff from our penis 0:01:47.480 --> 0:01:50.800 transplant episode because we ended and said, wow, there was 0:01:50.840 --> 0:01:55.840 some research on artificially grown penises and vaginas and we 0:01:55.880 --> 0:01:57.680 wish we had time to cover that, and we said, 0:01:57.800 --> 0:01:59.920 let's just build a whole episode out of that. Yeah, 0:02:00.040 --> 0:02:02.480 and it it actually follows nicely an episode that I 0:02:02.520 --> 0:02:05.720 recorded with Joe that I think we'll publish directly before 0:02:05.760 --> 0:02:09.720 this one that tackles the synthetic biology area from at 0:02:09.720 --> 0:02:15.000 a more of a genetic genomic level. Yeah. Well, and 0:02:15.120 --> 0:02:19.160 it's I mean, it's fascinating what we can do, uh, 0:02:19.200 --> 0:02:21.600 and and also what we can't do. So we're gonna 0:02:21.639 --> 0:02:25.680 sort of walk you the listener through, you know, the 0:02:25.800 --> 0:02:29.200 general process, and then we're gonna go organ by organ 0:02:29.960 --> 0:02:33.040 through the human body as to what we can actually 0:02:33.080 --> 0:02:36.920 grow and potentially transplant. And at the end, I'm going 0:02:36.960 --> 0:02:38.399 to try to keep track of this on a piece 0:02:38.400 --> 0:02:40.200 of paper as we're going along here. And at the 0:02:40.280 --> 0:02:42.880 end we're going to talk about what are artificially grown 0:02:42.880 --> 0:02:46.240 Frankenstein looks like, like, what parts are we pretty close 0:02:46.280 --> 0:02:49.679 to being able to sew together here for our Frankenstein? Yeah. Yeah, 0:02:49.680 --> 0:02:51.519 we're going to provide we're potentially going to provide a 0:02:51.520 --> 0:02:54.880 scaffolding of knowledge here that you may grow your own. 0:02:57.440 --> 0:02:58.959 But but I think it's it's cool to sort of 0:02:59.000 --> 0:03:01.839 take it piece by piece. And because this is how 0:03:01.960 --> 0:03:04.520 science works, right, scale by scale we build out the 0:03:04.680 --> 0:03:08.240 entire picture, and it's important to Let's let's get two 0:03:08.320 --> 0:03:12.280 things out of the way before we dive into the vat. Uh. 0:03:12.360 --> 0:03:14.880 There's the first is that you know some of you 0:03:14.880 --> 0:03:17.320 are probably asking why would we need to grow organs 0:03:17.320 --> 0:03:18.880 in a vat? Why why would we even do that 0:03:18.960 --> 0:03:23.040 unless you're a mad scientist. Well, biomaterials are historically used 0:03:23.080 --> 0:03:26.720 to replace diseased or damaged tissues. So you know, if 0:03:26.800 --> 0:03:29.920 somebody's got a bad ticker or kidney or lung or whatever, 0:03:29.919 --> 0:03:31.760 wouldn't be great if you could just swap in another 0:03:31.760 --> 0:03:33.800 one that you grew in tank, rather than getting a 0:03:33.840 --> 0:03:38.480 donation from somebody else, Which leads me to, uh, the 0:03:38.640 --> 0:03:42.600 how organ transplantation works aspect of this as well. Now 0:03:42.720 --> 0:03:44.680 we don't have time in this episode to cover it, 0:03:44.800 --> 0:03:47.520 but if you haven't listened to our penis transplant episode, 0:03:47.920 --> 0:03:51.880 we cover pretty much the whole process, not just penises, 0:03:51.920 --> 0:03:55.400 but for all organ transplants. At the beginning of that episode, 0:03:55.840 --> 0:03:58.680 you know how how you go about finding a donor 0:03:58.840 --> 0:04:02.680 the immuno suppressive of medicine that's required all of that 0:04:02.840 --> 0:04:05.400 bone marrow transplants. So we're not going to really do 0:04:05.440 --> 0:04:07.520 a deep dive on that today, but keep in mind 0:04:07.560 --> 0:04:11.120 a lot of the same principles apply here. Yeah, indeed, 0:04:11.160 --> 0:04:12.880 and just to drive them, two of the just key 0:04:12.920 --> 0:04:16.560 sobering facts here is that a there's a worldwide shortage 0:04:16.600 --> 0:04:19.479 of donor organs out there, and every day, just in 0:04:19.520 --> 0:04:23.040 the United States, twenty two people die while waiting for 0:04:23.160 --> 0:04:26.400 organ transplants and escorting to federal statistics. And this is 0:04:26.400 --> 0:04:29.400 a great time as well. If you're feeling that that 0:04:29.520 --> 0:04:32.560 information hit you, UH, make sure that you're a registered 0:04:32.720 --> 0:04:35.279 organ donor. And if you have any um, you know, 0:04:35.360 --> 0:04:39.200 issues surrounding that, I encourage you to sort of work 0:04:39.279 --> 0:04:42.359 your way through them. And also I believe in depending 0:04:42.400 --> 0:04:45.040 on where you are, you can put certain you can 0:04:45.040 --> 0:04:47.480 put certain limits on your own organ donation. So if 0:04:47.520 --> 0:04:50.359 you do have like a weird thing about your your heart, 0:04:50.839 --> 0:04:53.080 you know that I wanted to remain inside of a 0:04:53.120 --> 0:04:56.840 coptic jar in your pyramid, I believe you can. You 0:04:57.000 --> 0:05:00.160 can specify that. Yeah, and and I'll red or ate 0:05:00.200 --> 0:05:03.280 this from the penis transplant episode. Some organs are not 0:05:03.360 --> 0:05:08.159 automatically covered on your regular old organ donor transplant card 0:05:08.920 --> 0:05:12.160 H so you need to specify, for instance, that they 0:05:12.160 --> 0:05:14.200 can take your penis or they can I don't know 0:05:14.240 --> 0:05:16.080 what the other ones would be. Penis was the one 0:05:16.080 --> 0:05:18.720 that we really feel. And I want to stress if 0:05:18.720 --> 0:05:20.560 you're worried about what's gonna happen to your penis after 0:05:20.600 --> 0:05:24.520 you die, um, virtually if you do nothing, if nothing 0:05:24.520 --> 0:05:27.120 happens to if it's not donated, nothing good is going 0:05:27.160 --> 0:05:29.960 to happen to your penis? Trust me? Um, so why 0:05:30.040 --> 0:05:33.520 not donated so it can do some good? Uh, So 0:05:33.880 --> 0:05:38.760 let's just cover this. There's a general kind of approach 0:05:39.080 --> 0:05:44.800 that has multiple angles for growing human organs, although we 0:05:44.880 --> 0:05:47.799 do sometimes grow animal organs to test out the process 0:05:48.520 --> 0:05:54.440 in a vat in a culture. Right there, they're actually 0:05:54.720 --> 0:05:57.320 you know, a few different approaches. This is a really 0:05:57.360 --> 0:06:00.479 exciting area of science. And if you if you follow 0:06:00.480 --> 0:06:02.960 the literature like we do, uh, there's always some new 0:06:03.000 --> 0:06:06.080 technique that's that's you know, being experimented with or just 0:06:06.080 --> 0:06:08.720 sort of rolled out as a theoretical possibility. It's gotten 0:06:08.720 --> 0:06:11.040 to the point where, like I'd say, there's weekly there's 0:06:11.040 --> 0:06:13.400 a headline about somebody using a three D printer to 0:06:13.720 --> 0:06:16.680 buy print some kind of bio material, to the point 0:06:16.720 --> 0:06:19.680 where like it doesn't even maybe to us because we 0:06:19.760 --> 0:06:22.479 look at it so often, but it doesn't feel shocking anymore. 0:06:22.520 --> 0:06:24.440 The first time I was like, WHOA, you can print 0:06:24.480 --> 0:06:27.440 skin on a three D print. There, that's cool, And 0:06:27.480 --> 0:06:30.080 now it's kind of like yeah, of course, yeah. And 0:06:30.080 --> 0:06:32.960 some of them are basically that like ink jetting cell 0:06:33.000 --> 0:06:36.839 types into organized structures. Essentially three D printing with stem 0:06:36.839 --> 0:06:39.640 cells in some cases. Other times you're talking about the 0:06:39.839 --> 0:06:42.919 use of scaffolding, which we'll get into, or letting cell 0:06:43.080 --> 0:06:47.800 spontaneously self organized into proto organs. Uh. You know again 0:06:47.920 --> 0:06:49.839 within a vat of some kind or some sort of 0:06:49.839 --> 0:06:53.159 a culture. Um. Yeah, the floating I believe it's called 0:06:53.160 --> 0:06:56.400 the floating culture is what we're going to get into later. 0:06:56.560 --> 0:06:59.760 That when you have to grow something three dimensionally. Yeah, 0:06:59.760 --> 0:07:02.000 And this is all interesting because we're we're playing with 0:07:02.120 --> 0:07:05.919 life here. We're manipulating self building, self organizing systems in 0:07:06.000 --> 0:07:09.000 order to build or grow specific structures and tissues for 0:07:09.120 --> 0:07:11.720 specific bodies. So it's not like you're just building something 0:07:11.720 --> 0:07:13.800 out of the bricks. It's like you're building something out 0:07:13.800 --> 0:07:18.200 of bricks and the bricks had their own agenda already. Yeah. Absolutely, 0:07:18.240 --> 0:07:21.720 these are not your father's legos. These these well they 0:07:21.800 --> 0:07:27.160 might be, but yeah, they do they like we like 0:07:27.240 --> 0:07:30.840 we've talked about before, whenever you're kind of rearranging cells 0:07:30.880 --> 0:07:32.920 on human level and trying to get them to attach 0:07:33.000 --> 0:07:35.760 to other cells. There's all kinds of different things that 0:07:35.800 --> 0:07:39.920 they're doing. Uh. And that synthetic biomaterials one that we 0:07:39.960 --> 0:07:42.480 talked about that as well too in terms of how 0:07:42.840 --> 0:07:45.680 the how you can sort of program them to have 0:07:45.760 --> 0:07:49.440 different powers. Right. Yeah, Now we're gonna talk about stem 0:07:49.440 --> 0:07:51.280 cells a little bit in this, so I just want 0:07:51.320 --> 0:07:52.880 to go ahead and throw out just a quick reminder 0:07:53.320 --> 0:07:55.440 what stem cells are for everyone. And this is just 0:07:55.520 --> 0:07:58.360 information that comes right from how stuff works How stem 0:07:58.400 --> 0:08:01.720 cells work article. Check that if you want a deeper die. 0:08:01.800 --> 0:08:04.679 But stem cells essentially the building block of human body. 0:08:04.920 --> 0:08:07.440 Stem cells are capable of dividing for long periods of time, 0:08:07.880 --> 0:08:11.440 they're unspecialized, and they can develop into specialized cells. So 0:08:11.520 --> 0:08:14.440 stem cells inside an embryo will eventually give rise to 0:08:14.560 --> 0:08:18.560 every cell, tissue, and organ in the fetus's body. But 0:08:18.640 --> 0:08:20.760 unlike a regular cell, which can only replicate to create 0:08:20.800 --> 0:08:23.240 more of its own kind of cell, a stem cell 0:08:23.720 --> 0:08:27.040 is pluripotent. When it divides, it can make any one 0:08:27.200 --> 0:08:29.800 of the two twenty different cells in the human body. 0:08:30.160 --> 0:08:32.560 But we don't just have embryonic stem cells, which of 0:08:32.600 --> 0:08:35.160 course come from the embryo or the fetus or the 0:08:35.240 --> 0:08:38.640 umbilical cord blood. We also have adult stem cells, which 0:08:38.640 --> 0:08:41.560 are These are an already developed tissues, such as those 0:08:41.600 --> 0:08:44.000 of the heart, the brain, the kidney, and they usually 0:08:44.000 --> 0:08:47.600 give rise to cells within their resident organs. And then 0:08:47.600 --> 0:08:51.400 we also have induced pluriphoton stem cells, and these are 0:08:51.440 --> 0:08:54.800 stem cells that are their adult. Uh, they're differentiated cells 0:08:54.840 --> 0:08:58.920 that are then experimentally reprogrammed into a stem cell like state. 0:08:59.280 --> 0:09:01.839 And this is in portant to distinguish the difference between 0:09:01.840 --> 0:09:04.640 the embryonic stem cells and the adult stem cells because 0:09:04.679 --> 0:09:07.840 I feel like, you know, this was probably over ten 0:09:07.920 --> 0:09:11.880 years ago that the big controversial debate about using stem 0:09:11.880 --> 0:09:15.160 cells and science was going around in political circles. But 0:09:15.280 --> 0:09:19.360 I believe that most people think embryonic stem cells when 0:09:19.360 --> 0:09:22.200 they just hear stem cells, they're not thinking about that 0:09:22.200 --> 0:09:24.679 that there's the possibility for other types of stem cells 0:09:24.720 --> 0:09:27.440 to be used in this. Yeah, the politics kind of 0:09:27.480 --> 0:09:29.640 loaded the term a bit, so it's good to to 0:09:29.920 --> 0:09:36.320 to be specific. So let's talk about the main process 0:09:36.400 --> 0:09:41.000 that's used for growing flesh. I guess is the best 0:09:41.000 --> 0:09:44.240 way to say it, because there it's not always an organ, 0:09:44.480 --> 0:09:46.520 you know, it could be any kind of flesh depending 0:09:46.559 --> 0:09:48.400 on what you're what you're scrape in and what you're 0:09:49.240 --> 0:09:51.800 kind of protein gel you're soaking it in. But the 0:09:51.840 --> 0:09:58.839 process is generally generally called de cellular ization and essentially 0:09:59.000 --> 0:10:01.960 what you're doing here's your making replacement parts out of 0:10:01.960 --> 0:10:07.840 the raw materials from a patient or from undifferentiated stem cells. 0:10:07.880 --> 0:10:10.880 So you take cells from that organ, you put them 0:10:10.920 --> 0:10:13.600 into lab dishes, and you bade them in a fluid 0:10:13.679 --> 0:10:17.960 that prompts them to multiply. Now, I don't want to 0:10:17.960 --> 0:10:21.000 dive super deep into the biochemistry of all of this 0:10:21.040 --> 0:10:22.680 because I think it would confuse us, and it would 0:10:22.679 --> 0:10:26.480 confuse most of our listeners unless we're already a biochemist, right, 0:10:26.920 --> 0:10:30.600 But um, you know, it sounded to me like the 0:10:30.679 --> 0:10:33.839 type of fluid depended on what type of thing you're 0:10:33.840 --> 0:10:37.560 trying to grow, too, uh, And this process takes a while. 0:10:37.640 --> 0:10:39.840 For instance, if you want to grow a human bladder, 0:10:40.160 --> 0:10:42.960 that takes about six weeks scripts them cells off, you 0:10:42.960 --> 0:10:45.160 get in the right mixture, you to let it wait, 0:10:45.320 --> 0:10:47.800 takes about six weeks to go. But what you need 0:10:47.880 --> 0:10:50.960 before you can actually have an artificial organ is a 0:10:50.960 --> 0:10:53.400 temporary structure. And this is what we're talking about when 0:10:53.400 --> 0:10:58.679 we say scaffolding. Basically, this mimics the basic internal architecture 0:10:58.800 --> 0:11:02.719 of cartilage, and it also protects the growing cells from 0:11:02.720 --> 0:11:06.679 any kind of mechanical stress. Upon them. So this scaffold 0:11:06.800 --> 0:11:11.000 is what we pour the cells onto. That's pretty nuts. Yeah. 0:11:11.240 --> 0:11:15.080 It always reminds me of the Terminator movies, the exo 0:11:15.160 --> 0:11:17.840 skeleton and then you're growing the flesh on it, or 0:11:17.960 --> 0:11:20.000 specifically the toys that came out where it was like 0:11:20.000 --> 0:11:21.800 an exo skeleton toy and you had to put like 0:11:22.520 --> 0:11:24.120 on it. Oh, you put Plato on it. I was 0:11:24.160 --> 0:11:26.080 agreed if you could like peel its skin off and 0:11:26.080 --> 0:11:27.959 then put it back on again or something like that, 0:11:28.160 --> 0:11:32.319 like my flesh suit. Um. Yeah, absolutely. I wonder if 0:11:32.400 --> 0:11:35.960 James Cameron and his crew did their homework on scaffolding 0:11:36.000 --> 0:11:38.920 back then, although the eighties I don't think scaffolding was 0:11:39.000 --> 0:11:42.600 really at its height yet. You know this this my 0:11:42.679 --> 0:11:45.120 understanding and we'll find out as we go along, really 0:11:45.160 --> 0:11:48.240 kind of starting the seventies. Um, but maybe he was 0:11:48.280 --> 0:11:51.800 aware of it. So if you use what are called 0:11:52.200 --> 0:11:56.680 condroblast cells in the scaffold, it allows the cells that 0:11:56.679 --> 0:11:59.520 you attached to grow and to divide and to even 0:12:00.160 --> 0:12:03.520 regrow the cartilage. Then you coat this with other cells 0:12:03.559 --> 0:12:05.360 that are important to the organ. So for instance, if 0:12:05.400 --> 0:12:07.240 you're trying to grow bladder, you would code it with 0:12:07.280 --> 0:12:10.400 eurotheel cells. Uh, this would allow it to sort of 0:12:10.520 --> 0:12:15.079 you know, have the moisteness and allow urine to pass through. Right. Uh. 0:12:15.280 --> 0:12:18.440 Weirdest of all, you can actually design the scaffold to 0:12:18.600 --> 0:12:22.240 dissolve itself once all the cells are finished rebuilding. Right, 0:12:22.280 --> 0:12:25.440 So cells grow up around this scaffold, they create their 0:12:25.440 --> 0:12:28.920 own system of cartilage, and then the scaffold dissolves and boom, 0:12:29.160 --> 0:12:31.720 you've got an artificially grown organ. One of my favorite 0:12:31.720 --> 0:12:35.880 descriptions of the process here comes from the founder of 0:12:36.120 --> 0:12:40.800 Harvard Apparatus Regenerative Technology or heart and I think now 0:12:40.840 --> 0:12:43.560 it's actually called biostage, but the founder was made by 0:12:43.559 --> 0:12:46.079 the name of David Green and in um and is 0:12:46.120 --> 0:12:50.199 quoted in a technology review is stems. Stem cells are 0:12:50.200 --> 0:12:52.679 taken from a patient's bone marrow, and then they are 0:12:53.040 --> 0:12:56.080 rained down over the top of the scaffold, much like 0:12:56.200 --> 0:13:00.320 a chicken in a rotisserie. Yeah, I'm in mad saying 0:13:00.320 --> 0:13:07.120 that this is like stem self fondue, like dip and drip. Well. 0:13:07.200 --> 0:13:10.720 The method was first pioneered by a guy named Larry 0:13:10.920 --> 0:13:14.360 Hench and this was in the late nineteen sixties. Basically, 0:13:14.760 --> 0:13:16.760 he and his team were seeing a lot of amputees 0:13:16.800 --> 0:13:19.360 coming back from the Vietnam War, and they wanted to 0:13:19.400 --> 0:13:22.079 try to do something. So they discovered and used a 0:13:22.160 --> 0:13:26.240 material that's called hydro zala petite, and this is a 0:13:26.280 --> 0:13:29.280 mineral that actually occurs in the human body and bonds 0:13:29.400 --> 0:13:32.000 really well with bone. So they found that when they 0:13:32.000 --> 0:13:34.680 experimented with it in the form of what they called 0:13:34.679 --> 0:13:39.280 a bioactive glass, it had excellent properties for this application 0:13:39.400 --> 0:13:42.840 of artificial organs. Bone cells could actually live on it 0:13:42.920 --> 0:13:46.880 and then subsequently create healthy new bone. So it seems 0:13:46.880 --> 0:13:49.320 like it it would work perfectly. Right. You grow the 0:13:49.480 --> 0:13:52.199 cells for the muscle, the meat, I guess as we 0:13:52.240 --> 0:13:54.319 would call it, and then the bone itself will regrow 0:13:54.440 --> 0:13:57.720 in the cartilage as well. So that's the sort of 0:13:57.880 --> 0:14:01.040 origin of this starting off. And that's sixties. That's that's 0:14:01.040 --> 0:14:04.560 time enough to terminator. Yeah, all right, James Cameron probably 0:14:04.920 --> 0:14:07.319 was down with a scaffolding science by then. Do you 0:14:07.320 --> 0:14:11.160 think the eight hundred had any organs? It definitely had skinned, 0:14:11.320 --> 0:14:14.920 good question blood. Yeah, it had at least something that 0:14:15.040 --> 0:14:19.360 looked like eyeballs over its robotic I couldn't eat. I 0:14:19.400 --> 0:14:22.560 can't remember. Could a tight hundred eat or did it 0:14:22.640 --> 0:14:28.120 just like I'm also like, give it to me that. Wow, 0:14:28.160 --> 0:14:30.320 I didn't know you had that Arnold Schwartz. We all 0:14:30.360 --> 0:14:35.359 have an Arnold. Um. I keep getting my Terminator timelines 0:14:35.400 --> 0:14:39.960 confused with all the new movies and the Sarah Connor chronicles, 0:14:39.960 --> 0:14:42.320 which makes me I don't know if those are considered 0:14:42.400 --> 0:14:45.600 cannon anymore. But they don't think even they know those. Yeah, 0:14:45.600 --> 0:14:47.440 I don't think they do either. But those robots were 0:14:47.440 --> 0:14:50.720 doing all kinds of weird things that yeah, well we'll 0:14:50.720 --> 0:14:52.520 have to throw that one out the listeners. I think 0:14:52.520 --> 0:14:54.840 they did like a kind of scaffolding type thing though 0:14:54.880 --> 0:14:56.720 in those like they sort of tried to explain how 0:14:56.720 --> 0:14:58.720 it works. I remember they would like in the show. Yeah, 0:14:59.520 --> 0:15:01.520 never watched the TV show, but I heard people and 0:15:01.640 --> 0:15:04.200 put their bodies in like a bathtub and melt down, 0:15:04.560 --> 0:15:07.760 melt them down so they could then subsequently kind of 0:15:07.800 --> 0:15:10.600 like this process like regrow the flesh on top of them, 0:15:10.600 --> 0:15:17.320 so they basically took their place. So organ scaffolding um, 0:15:17.360 --> 0:15:20.200 in the real sense that we're talking about here, also 0:15:20.320 --> 0:15:24.160 entails a great deal of bio mimetic material possibilities. Uh. 0:15:24.160 --> 0:15:25.680 And this is an area where I've I've kind of 0:15:25.720 --> 0:15:28.360 dealt with the topics some over the years. Uh. For 0:15:28.400 --> 0:15:31.600 how stuff works, a scientist continue to take inspiration from 0:15:31.640 --> 0:15:35.400 such diverse wonder materials of the natural world as spider 0:15:35.440 --> 0:15:39.360 silk and also the squid sucker in protein responsible for 0:15:39.400 --> 0:15:42.840 their ringed sucker teeth on a squid centacle. Both of 0:15:42.880 --> 0:15:45.600 these materials are ideal is they're strong, they're malleable, and 0:15:45.600 --> 0:15:48.880 they're organic. Yeah. That's the really difficult thing here, is 0:15:48.920 --> 0:15:51.640 like we can grow skin all the livelong day, but 0:15:51.920 --> 0:15:55.160 being able to grow materials that are both strong and 0:15:55.320 --> 0:15:58.880 flexible the same way our actual organs are is tough. Yeah. 0:15:58.880 --> 0:16:02.920 Scientists in Germany have proposed using spider silk as a biocompatible, 0:16:02.920 --> 0:16:07.880 biodegradable adhesive matrix for skin repair specifically, and this involves 0:16:07.960 --> 0:16:11.240 using dragline silk, which is like the premium silk because 0:16:11.240 --> 0:16:14.200 I'm maybe even minus the spiders have different types of 0:16:14.360 --> 0:16:19.000 webbing that threadcount. Yeah essentially, Yeah, I mean spider silk. 0:16:19.000 --> 0:16:20.720 I think we have an old episode in the in 0:16:20.760 --> 0:16:23.040 the archives about it. Go back and listen to it 0:16:23.160 --> 0:16:26.400 if you want more. But it is uh, yeah, this 0:16:26.600 --> 0:16:30.600 fascinating strong, malleable substance and uh, and and the spider 0:16:30.720 --> 0:16:35.120 is is like a musician creating these different different notes 0:16:35.320 --> 0:16:39.320 of web. But this particular a bit of research. They 0:16:39.400 --> 0:16:44.240 they were talking about weaving matrices on steel frames and 0:16:44.400 --> 0:16:47.680 seeding them with the fire blasts, which provides the structural 0:16:47.760 --> 0:16:51.160 background for all the connective tissue. And if you want 0:16:51.240 --> 0:16:54.120 something even crazier, and this is this is the one 0:16:54.200 --> 0:16:56.440 that I read about back in two thousand ten. We 0:16:56.560 --> 0:16:58.720 were just talking about this off air. This is blockers, 0:16:58.880 --> 0:17:01.200 this is it's two thousand tents, so it's actually a 0:17:01.200 --> 0:17:03.360 little bit old at this point. It was a Rice 0:17:03.520 --> 0:17:08.720 University scheme to inject cells with a metallic gel, and 0:17:08.800 --> 0:17:12.240 the researchers then would have would have succeeded in the 0:17:12.359 --> 0:17:17.119 suspending cultured cells in a three dimensional magnetic field, and 0:17:17.760 --> 0:17:20.800 this would serve as a magnetic scaffolding and organs would 0:17:20.840 --> 0:17:23.040 be grown around that in the right shape without any 0:17:23.080 --> 0:17:27.439 foreign materials at all. Wow, which is that's pretty crazy, 0:17:27.520 --> 0:17:29.320 said sadly. That doesn't seem to be a lot of 0:17:29.800 --> 0:17:31.960 new information on this. I don't know if they're still 0:17:32.400 --> 0:17:34.480 working on it or if it's an idea that is 0:17:34.680 --> 0:17:37.280 kind of shelved. But I'm also trying to imagine how 0:17:38.040 --> 0:17:43.159 the metallic substances, uh, dissolve in the same way that 0:17:43.280 --> 0:17:46.879 like the organic scaffoldings that we're using to you know, 0:17:47.160 --> 0:17:49.800 like or would you just have it? Would you be 0:17:49.880 --> 0:17:52.640 like Wolverine and you just have like metal built into 0:17:52.640 --> 0:17:55.760 your I don't know, flesh somehow, just in flex here 0:17:55.800 --> 0:17:58.760 and there. What's It's interesting you mentioned Wolverine because I 0:17:58.800 --> 0:18:01.280 feel like the second X Man movie, there's a scene 0:18:01.320 --> 0:18:05.800 where Mystique injects like a prison guard with a metallic gel, 0:18:05.960 --> 0:18:09.960 so that Magneto Canes has that. Yeah, yeah, yeah, totally. 0:18:10.080 --> 0:18:13.159 He sucks the like metal dust out of this guy's body. Right, 0:18:13.480 --> 0:18:15.600 you can make little like or that's my favorite scene 0:18:15.600 --> 0:18:17.680 in that movie. Oh yeah, that makes the little orbs 0:18:17.720 --> 0:18:21.360 and he's grinning while he's shooting the orbs around smashing everything. 0:18:22.240 --> 0:18:25.920 Ian McKellen, if only we could artificially grow Ian McKellan now. 0:18:26.200 --> 0:18:28.920 In order to pull off this the scheme, though, with 0:18:29.040 --> 0:18:32.879 the magnetic at least suspended organ scaffolding, they need to 0:18:32.920 --> 0:18:36.040 be able to program a detailed magnetic field that would 0:18:36.040 --> 0:18:38.920 float the stem cells and in the exact spots needed 0:18:38.960 --> 0:18:42.680 to grow the full organ. So hopefully, you know, here 0:18:42.720 --> 0:18:44.200 we'll hear more about that one in the future, because 0:18:44.200 --> 0:18:47.399 I think it's a pretty crazy cool idea. Yeah, But anyway, 0:18:47.400 --> 0:18:49.879 they're numerous studies out there, the quest for new and 0:18:49.920 --> 0:18:53.440 improved ways of scaffolding out in Oregon, everything from synthetic 0:18:53.520 --> 0:18:59.560 collagen to biommetic materials, self assembling scaffolds, et cetera. So, however, 0:18:59.760 --> 0:19:02.639 you scaffold out the artificial organ that you're working on. 0:19:02.840 --> 0:19:06.160 Once you've done that, the organ needs to be nurtured 0:19:06.400 --> 0:19:09.960 in an incubator that mimics our body's conditions so that 0:19:10.040 --> 0:19:13.000 the cells can grow together some more. You're looking basically 0:19:13.080 --> 0:19:16.199 to recreate the temperature and humidity of the human body. Now, 0:19:16.480 --> 0:19:19.800 remember when we talked to um Mary Roach, right, we 0:19:19.880 --> 0:19:22.560 talked on the penile transplant episode. We talked about why 0:19:22.640 --> 0:19:27.040 the the nose is particularly good for doing penis transplants, right, 0:19:27.119 --> 0:19:30.240 because the nose has the same sort of properties of 0:19:30.440 --> 0:19:33.840 moisteness that you need for that spongy tissue and a penis. 0:19:34.400 --> 0:19:36.159 So this is the same kind of thing. Basically, like, 0:19:36.280 --> 0:19:39.880 you want to get these cells to react and deal 0:19:40.000 --> 0:19:42.240 with their environment the way that they're going to need 0:19:42.359 --> 0:19:46.280 to inside the human body, then you implant it into 0:19:46.320 --> 0:19:50.600 the patient the scaffold gradually dissolves. The biggest problem for 0:19:50.680 --> 0:19:54.600 this method is maintaining a blood supply to the artificial 0:19:54.640 --> 0:19:58.080 tissue once it's implanted in the human body. There are 0:19:58.240 --> 0:20:04.480 also a cup other weird methods that haven't similar to 0:20:04.560 --> 0:20:07.080 the like this metallic scaffold link thing I haven't really 0:20:07.160 --> 0:20:09.760 quite taken off yet. Um. But the first one, you know, 0:20:09.840 --> 0:20:12.920 we mentioned at the top is the three D printing, right, So, yeah, 0:20:13.080 --> 0:20:17.280 you can three D print uh flesh right now. I 0:20:17.320 --> 0:20:19.200 don't know that you can three D print organs in 0:20:19.240 --> 0:20:21.239 the same way that we do when we grow them 0:20:21.280 --> 0:20:24.640 in cultures like this, right because it's because as we've 0:20:24.720 --> 0:20:26.239 kind of laid out here, it's like, on one hand, 0:20:26.320 --> 0:20:28.240 you have cells and then you have tissue. And it's 0:20:28.240 --> 0:20:29.480 one thing you have the tissue, but then you have 0:20:29.560 --> 0:20:33.000 the tissue, uh and and or various tissues forming into 0:20:33.000 --> 0:20:36.760 an organ. That's a more complicated endeavor. So there's this 0:20:36.880 --> 0:20:40.639 company called Organovo. I wonder how long they spent like 0:20:41.320 --> 0:20:42.920 trying to come up with that one, or is it 0:20:43.119 --> 0:20:46.080 organ organ Ovo? Maybe very nice? That one that makes 0:20:46.119 --> 0:20:50.080 more sense out of there, based out of San Diego, 0:20:50.119 --> 0:20:53.000 and they distribute body part printers, and these basically go 0:20:53.280 --> 0:20:57.120 to the labs that are already working on these artificial organs. 0:20:57.480 --> 0:21:00.320 It basically works just like an incent printer. It sides 0:21:00.400 --> 0:21:04.359 droplets of cells and scaffold materials onto a platform that 0:21:04.520 --> 0:21:07.879 gradually builds the tissue in three dimensions. So the labs 0:21:07.920 --> 0:21:11.760 all around the world use this. They mainly build skin, muscle, 0:21:11.840 --> 0:21:15.040 and blood vessels out of it. One lab has actually 0:21:15.200 --> 0:21:17.679 refined it to be able to make a mouse sized 0:21:17.760 --> 0:21:21.240 heart in forty minutes. And I want to use this 0:21:21.280 --> 0:21:24.119 as an opportunity to let you the audience know that 0:21:24.200 --> 0:21:27.560 we're about to get into some mouse brutality big time. 0:21:27.680 --> 0:21:30.679 Like this is a field where without mice and rats, 0:21:31.160 --> 0:21:33.640 we wouldn't have been able to go far. And I'm 0:21:33.720 --> 0:21:36.760 going to have nightmares about these swarms of rats that 0:21:36.800 --> 0:21:38.840 are going to be coming at me with artificially grown 0:21:38.960 --> 0:21:43.880 human organs attached to them in various positions. There's one 0:21:43.880 --> 0:21:46.400 other thing I mentioned Wolverine earlier, right, because the whole 0:21:46.440 --> 0:21:50.840 metal thing. The ultimate goal here is that you wouldn't 0:21:50.840 --> 0:21:53.800 grow the organs in a vat, but rather that you 0:21:53.840 --> 0:21:57.080 would diagnose that there's something wrong with the organs ahead 0:21:57.080 --> 0:22:00.159