Thursday, November 6, 2014
11/6/14
Today was incredibly interesting! I was on a field trip for AP Bio all day. It was essentially a really really long and boring talk given in a freezing high school auditorium, but towards the end the talk he got into some really cool updates in medicine that could change the way we treat cancer and potentially cure Type I Diabetes, as well as making organs more available to those in need of donors.
There was a conference recently that discovered that the only cells that can be "founders" cells for cancers are stem cells since only stem cells are capable of mitosis. Through testing of blood just like one would get tested for allergies, one could screen for cancer and get the problem taken care of before it can even happen. There was also something about antibodies for stem cells, but I don't remember what it was exactly so I don't want to say something inaccurate.
In terms of growing organs in laboratories, a lot has been done and can be done to make it easier to create new organs with ease. One really awesome discovery was creating a chimeric embryo combining a mouse embryo with rat stem cells and vice versa. Each would be spotted with tissue from the other in it. Scientists took this one step further, genetically modifying the mouse so that it would not have a pancreas. Despite this, the mouse survived to maturity. Upon dissection, a rat kidney was found inside the chimera mouse. Applying this logic on a bigger scale, it would be possible for humans to remove some skin cells, have them converted into stem cells, and then inserted into a pig fetus. When pigs reach maturity, their organs are the same size as a human's. So, a human pancreas/heart/lungs/liver/kidney/whatever could be grown and harvested in a pig. This is perfect for people who need organs donated, since so few donors are out there.
Overall, it was just so astounding to hear about these things that would be happening in the next 5-10 years.
There was a conference recently that discovered that the only cells that can be "founders" cells for cancers are stem cells since only stem cells are capable of mitosis. Through testing of blood just like one would get tested for allergies, one could screen for cancer and get the problem taken care of before it can even happen. There was also something about antibodies for stem cells, but I don't remember what it was exactly so I don't want to say something inaccurate.
In terms of growing organs in laboratories, a lot has been done and can be done to make it easier to create new organs with ease. One really awesome discovery was creating a chimeric embryo combining a mouse embryo with rat stem cells and vice versa. Each would be spotted with tissue from the other in it. Scientists took this one step further, genetically modifying the mouse so that it would not have a pancreas. Despite this, the mouse survived to maturity. Upon dissection, a rat kidney was found inside the chimera mouse. Applying this logic on a bigger scale, it would be possible for humans to remove some skin cells, have them converted into stem cells, and then inserted into a pig fetus. When pigs reach maturity, their organs are the same size as a human's. So, a human pancreas/heart/lungs/liver/kidney/whatever could be grown and harvested in a pig. This is perfect for people who need organs donated, since so few donors are out there.
Overall, it was just so astounding to hear about these things that would be happening in the next 5-10 years.
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