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Artificial organs ???

Artificial organs ???

Artificial organs ???

(OP)
I have seen a kidney preparation where they filled the
blood and urine vessels with plastics of different color
and dissolved the tissues.

Could'nt similar methodes be used to make artificial
lung,kidney, etc.?

Plesae read FAQ240-1032
My WEB: <http://geocities.com/nbucska/>

RE: Artificial organs ???

Finding a material that the immune system won't try to kill/remove is a much bigger challenge than fabrication of that material.





Mike Halloran
Pembroke Pines, FL, USA

RE: Artificial organs ???

I dunno, there's plenty of inert things that your body won't even try to touch:

gold, titanium alloys, PEEK polymers, carbon fiber, tantalum, most silicone

The problem with creating a functional organ is that they are very very commplex things that are constantly involved in active chemical processes.  I don't know what fabrication method we currently have that would match the macroscopic scale of a full lung to the microscopic pore size needed to actually trade oxygen molecules into red blood cells.  I think a blood cell is something like 0.00004in wide.

RE: Artificial organs ???

(OP)
well, a lung or kidney has this microscopic structure.
I am suggenting a way to try to use the organ as a king of
sacrificial template

Plesae read FAQ240-1032
My WEB: <http://geocities.com/nbucska/>

RE: Artificial organs ???

Okay, you could use the organ to cast a mold of its interior, then dissolve the organ, ...

then use the mold as a sacrificial core to make a replacement organ, then dissolve the core.

There are a few questions to be answered before you go into production...

- Where do you get the sacrificial organs?  

- Do they need to be healthy?

- Can the listed biocompatible materials be fabricated by the replication process you have suggested?

- Is the resulting physical replica of an organ's topology sufficient to serve as an organ replacement?  

( I don't think so, because ... )

- Given that the replica is made of bio-inert materials, how  can it participate in the molecular chemistry that is at the core of most organs' function?




Mike Halloran
Pembroke Pines, FL, USA

RE: Artificial organs ???

Good questions above - also, are our flow processes really that great that we can replicate exceedingly complex microscopic pore geometry?  

Not trying to be exclusively negative, but casting a mold of an apple does not make the result a fruit.  

RE: Artificial organs ???

That's the true wave-of-the-future stuff.  It takes full advantage of the cells themselves to perform the tricky bits.  I bet you could do this with skin grafts as well.  

Waiting for the 5th Element machine to spit out a supermodel....

RE: Artificial organs ???

(OP)
Mike:

- Where do you get the sacrificial organs?  
     pigs or cadavers ?
- Do they need to be healthy?
     most likely
- Can the listed biocompatible materials be fabricated by the replication process you have suggested?
     The listed ones or new ones perhaps using stem-cells.
- Is the resulting physical replica of an organ's topology sufficient to serve as an organ replacement?  
      The dialysis filter is only partially functional
 but still useful.


Plesae read FAQ240-1032
My WEB: <http://geocities.com/nbucska/>

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