Post on 12-Jan-2016
BIOENGINEERING BODY PARTS AND ORGANS FOR TRANSPLANT
LG: LIFE’S GOOD
BIOENGINEERINGRefers to the application of the
concepts and methods from the
biological, physical, chemical,
mathematical and computer
sciences combined with the
synthetic and analytic
methodologies of engineering to
open up the possibility of creating
new human tissues, organs and
blood.
SIGNIFICANCEThe human body is not perfect.
Some are created with inherent faults
and others break down before their
time. Because of the numerous
modern medical breakthroughs
discovered, we now have the
potential to change these faults and
make good out of the problems
through bioengineering or
biomedical engineering.
BIOENGINEERED BODY PARTS AND ORGANS
• SKIN
- Human skin cells are cultivated in the
lab and then embedded in a collagen
scaffold.
- The Fraunhofer Institute for
Interfacial Engineering &
Biotechnology manufactures 5,000
skin sheets in a month.
- BENEFICIAL IN TREATING: Extensive
wounding or trauma, burns, areas of
extensive skin loss due to infections and
skin cancers
• EAR
- A team from Princeton University used
3D printing technology to make a
functional ear from calf cells and
electronic materials
• BLADDER
- Surgeon Anthony Atala and his team
bioengineered bladders which
succeeded in clinical trials and were
constructed from patients’ cells.
- BENEFICIAL FOR: Children suffering
from spina bifida and those who are at
risk of kidney failure
BIOENGINEERED BODY PARTS AND ORGANS
• BLOOD VESSELS
- Made from the patient’s own cells
- BETTER TREATMENTS FOR:
Cardiovascular diseases, Kidney disease
and diabetes
• HEART- Artificial heart devices have been
implanted since 1980
- Recently, scientists have made many
advances in adding more biological material
into artificial heart devices
- Helpful for patients with kidney, lung or liver
disease, insulin-dependent diabetes, vascular
disease, high pulmonary vascular resistance,
recent thromboembolism and substance
abuse
BIOENGINEERED BODY PARTS AND ORGANS
• LIVER
- A team from the Yokohama City
University Graduate School of Medicine
reprogrammed human adult skin
cells, added other cell types and got
them to grow into early-stage liver
buds
- BENEFICIAL FOR: Patients with any
acute or chronic condition resulting in
irreversible liver dysfunction
BIOENGINEERED BODY PARTS AND ORGANS
• KIDNEY
- Most patients with kidney failure rely on
dialysis while only a fraction get
transplants
- Scientists from the University of
California, San Francisco are on a
mission to create a sophisticated
artificial kidney device made with
human kidney cells, silicon
nanofilters and powered by blood
pressure
BIOENGINEERED BODY PARTS AND ORGANS
SOURCES• http://www.teachengineering.org/
view_curricularunit.php?url=collection/cub_/
curricular_units/cub_biomed/
cub_biomed_curricularunit.xml
• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biological_engineering
• http://mashable.com/2013/07/23/bioengineered-
body-parts/