[LMB] transplants

[Mark Allums]

Ed Burkhead wrote:
>> given what we now know may be possible.
> 
> Mark,
> 
> What makes you think that "we now know may be possible" to grow a heart to a
> useful size in a week.
> 
> I'm thinking three months from a start to a useful size pumping heart is
> darn quick.  It takes some time for muscles to grow, or anything else.
> 
> What have you been seeing?
> 
> Ed


Well, first of all, there is the transformation of skin cells to heart 
muscle, that someone else mentioned.  That did take some time.  There 
are a few other things, but I am "extrapolating" from now to a future 
where a "temp" heart can be transplanted on short notice.  A permanent 
heart would follow in due course.  I should explain myself better, I 
guess.  Such a temporary transplant would be constructed as patchwork 
quilt, from components that can be grown quickly.  Possibly, there might 
be several hearts kept on hand of differing tissue types to anticipate 
demand.  This would require immunosuppressant drugs, just as transplants 
do now.  The patient wouldn't need to be on them for a lifetime, 
however, because a permanent organ would be grown in vitro (or maybe 
even in vivo) from the patient's own tissues.  This would take more 
time.  There is some speculation in research circles about doing just 
this.  Other organs are being speculated about as well, such as an 
insulin-producing artificial organ for Type I diabetics, and a synthetic 
liver produced from stem cells.  I have read different non-technical 
articles about this in Scientific American and on the net.

--Mark Allums