Past, Present and Future Artificial Organs
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Why Artificial Organs?
United Network for Organ Sharing Transplant Trends as of March 8,2015
There are approximately 123,000 people on the waiting list to recieve an organ transplant. Organs are distributed based on factors including medical urgency, blood type, height and weight, geography and length of time on the waiting list. Unfortunately, there are not enough organ donors nor are there enough organs available for transplantation. The result of this fact is that many
Approval
(Image 26)
In order for an Artificial Organ to be used in hospitals and for actual human use, it must first be approved by the FDA, which is the United States Food and Drug Administration. Throughout the past 15 years, the FDA has been taking progressively longer to clear Medical Device (510k) submissions, so the approval cycle of such devices now averages about 6 months. Using a 3rd party agency may help speed up the process of approval, but doing so is costly. The FDA continues to regulate new technology in this field but because the notion of Artificial Organs is still relatively new, it takes longer for them to be approved by the FDA.
people who are on the waiting list end up passing away while waiting for their turn. This is where artificial organs come in to play. Instead of waiting for someone else to donate an organ or for one to become available, why not just engineer a new one specific to the patient's needs? The development of Artificial Organs is still a work in progress but already, Artificial Hearts such as the Jarvick-2000, have been implanted into those who are waiting for a heart transplant. Another Total Artificial Heart was implanted into Robert Tools in 2001 as a complete heart replacement. With Artificial Organs, there would be less deaths from Organ failure without transplants. Every day, approximately 21 people on that waitlist die, and every ten minutes, another person is added to the waiting list. Artificial Organs are the key to reducing the number of deaths and the gap between donors and recievers.
To view a current Organ Waiting list, or to register yourslef as an organ donor, click the buttons that are below.
Innovative Technology
The field of Artificial Organs, whether they may be created through regenerative medicine or total artificial techniques, is ever-evolving and advancing. Through extensive research and countless lab experiments, bioengineers and researchers are discovering new materials and methods to create organs to help those whose organs have failed and are awaiting a transplant. In the sections below, you will learn about technology such as "Organs On A Chip" that will help aid in drug testing rather than using animal specimens, and also how 3-D printing plays a role in current and future artificial organ development.
Organs On A Chip
In 2015, a biomedical breakthrough has made a blip on the radar of artificial organs. Doctors Donowitz, Foulke-Abel, Tagle and Inber, along with their respecive teams have worked to manufacture the latest in drug testing technology: "Organs on a Chip." The most developed of a line of chip organs is the artificial gut on a chip, which is briefly described in the above gallery. The basis of these chip organs is human cells obtained by using enteroids, which act as human organs. These are human cells. The Organ on a chips' purpose is to speed up drug testing, and hopefully make it less expensive. The truth is, while testing drugs on mice does help predict drug toxicity and expected effect, humans are not mice. There is no guarantee that a drug's effect on a mouse will be the same on a human, and vice versa. Therefore, when human cells are used and allowed to grow and organize on these organ chips, the effect of drugs observed should be much clearer and more reliable. Researchers say that this technology is not yet fully developed, nor will it replace mice in the near future; however, there is a wide space for further development in order to one day use human organ chips for drug testing and compatibility. Researchers at John Hopkins and Harvard among many other institutions are working on organ chip systems including the gut, kidney, liver and even brain! Dr. Tagle of the National Center for Translating Sciences, has sponsored over ten organ systems, and says that the utmost goal is to tie all of the chips together in hopes to combine tissue chips into an integrated system that can mimic the complex functions of the human body. Hear the doctors speak about this innovative new technology in the National Public Radio broadcast below.
Human On a Chip
This diagram shows "Organ On a Chip" systems, what their purpose will be, and how the chip will look. As you can see, organ systems such as the lungs and gut would aid in telling researchers more about the absoption of drugs, further helping possibly cure certain diahreal diseases in the gut, and improve lung disease drugs and therapies. These systems could also possily help view drug therapies in relation the the bone marrow, heart, liver, and kidney.
Lung on a Chip
Gut on a Chip
3-D Printed Organs
What is 3-D Printing?
"3D printing or additive manufacturing is a process of making three dimensional solid objects from a digital file. The creation of a 3D printed object is achieved using additive processes. In an additive process an object is created by laying down successive layers of material until the entire object is created(28)." Instead of ink, human cells ae used for 3-D Printing Artificial Organs.
View the video below to see how Professor Anthony Atala of Wake Forest Instutute of Regenerative medicine 3-D prints several organs including a synthetic human bladder.
Future Bioprinter Technology
"Bioprinting works like this: Scientists harvest human cells from biopsies or stem cells, then allow them to multiply in a petri dish. The resulting mixture, a sort of biological ink, is fed into a 3-D printer, which is programmed to arrange different cell types, along with other materials, into a precise three-dimensional shape. Doctors hope that when placed in the body, these 3-D-printed cells will integrate with existing tissues (29)." By using a patient's own cells, the chances of the body rejecting the transplant is greatly reduced. Though not readily available, Bioprinted organs can be a great source of accurate drug testing and less deaths resulting from not finding an Organ transplant. Becuase using human cells is so complex, it is not as easy as using fat cells, for example. Already fat cells have been used in 3-D printing to reconstruct breast tissue for breast cancer survivors. Though it is only a cosmetic fix, it greatly boosts cancer survivors' self esteem.
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