I heart PBS

I don't have a T.V. When I say that, people either pitty me (because I'm a poor grad student) or they act like I'm so pious for giving up that slothful contraption. But really, I do watch T.V. shows. I watch them online! I watch Glee, Greek, and Kitchen Nightmares on Hulu (just like everyone else). But I'm also ADDICTED to PBS online! I love Masterpiece (Hello! Sherlock and Downton Abbey this past season!!) and Nova Science Now. I just watched an episode about "living forever", and there was a part on some scientists here in Boston growing organs at Mass General.

Now, I'm in Public Health, so most of my thoughts regarding Mass Gen involve charges, insurance companies, and staffing needs for patients. I have the tendancy to see American healthcare as some clodhopping mess with no direction and a bad attitude acquired at some unethical corprote board meeting in the 1980s. I digress...The point is, I walk by BMC, Mass-Gen, Brigham Womens all the time, and I forget to see the mindblowing innovation that the people in those buildings have achieved.

Seriously, while I'm trying to get my Dunkin Donuts fix, they are taking a set of human lungs from a cadaver, using a solution that strips cells, but not the protein structure of the cells, and implanting new cells on the scaffolding, which will grow into a new functioning organ! Dr. Ott at Mass Gen was on a team at U of Minnesota to do this. So cool! (Also, the organs look really neat, almost like they are carved out of white jade.)

via

This is a photo series of the first type of organ to undergo this process: a rat heart. The series shows the organ being stripped of the original cells, being re-covered with seed cells, and then the final new heart on the bottom right.

via

This is a stripped human heart. On Nova, they showed a functioning heart and a functioning pair of lungs that work inside jars.

I heard that last year, they put a heart scaffold into a lab rat, and the rat's body did not reject the implanted scaffold, bringing us one step closer to fully functioning, implantable organs for humans!

Question though, can this be used for people with congenital defects? Or will the different structure provide a solution to the original problem?