Care and feeding of a liver

Bioengineered livers might soon be within our grasp. Researchers at the Institute for Regenerative Medicine at Wake Forest University Baptist Medical Center (could that name be any longer?) have grown human liver cells into small, working livers. It's early yet, but the next step is animal studies to make sure these miniature livers continue to function like real livers. I already talked about a researcher who was engineering an artifical kidney he had hoped to par down to implantable size from the now room sized working artifical kidney. It's interesting to see the paths of research take both strictly biological and also technologically assembled forms. I think with diversity in development we are more likely to see huge leaps in science on this front and not be far from a Star Trek-esque world where many internal organs can be replaced with the proper machines.

 

And for those wondering, you can get your own plush organs (as seen in adorable photo) here at I Heart Guts.

Bioengineering an artificial kidney

Somewhere upwards of 50,000 people a year die of kidney failure. And they're not always some aging patient waiting in a nursing home. They're your friend, your neighbor, your relative.

Per DailyTech Dr. Shuvo Roy from UCSF is working on developing an artificial kidney that can be implanted in the body. Despite the fact that we all have a spare kidney, most of us a spare functional kidney we don't need, many people who suffer from kidney failure do not get the organs they need. They spend many years undergoing often daily dialysis treatments and when that is no longer effective enough to balance the body's water, minerals and waste patients must resort to hemodialysis as a last resort. More than fifty years ago, patients with renal failure who were unable to get transplants would die. Today there are options, but many patients still die while on dialysis because the treatments are no longer as effective as an actual working organ.

For now, Dr. Roy's artificial kidney is so large as to fill a whole room. He hopes to make it small enough that it can be implanted as well as biocompatible so patients do not suffer the effects of the body's rejection of non-compatible kidneys. Even if he is not successful in all of his endeavors it would still be a huge accomplishment to have what might basically become a portable kidney, even if external. For now dialysis patients must either have expensive equipment in their homes and the process can take from a few hours to 10 hours at a time. Or the patient must take frequent trips to a dialysis center. Only 35% of patients on dialysis survive more than five years, which is the average waiting time for a kidney. Here's to hoping Dr. Roy is successful.

What else is biofuel good for?

Seems like everyone is getting in on the energy from algae phenomenon. Which is great, because I know some people with a pool who know how easy that stuff grows and are ready for all you venture capitalists to make them millionaires.

 

Given how "hot" this whole "green jobs" and sustainability BS is, it's no surprise there's now algae in my "healthy" drinks (enough quotes for you?). Not just any algae, but blue green algae. I guess like yellow dye that differentiates it from any other kinds of ridiculous colors of algae I don't want in my drink. Along with odorless garlic. Which is good, because I want my breath to smell like algae, ok? Not garlic.

 

Algae is the new biofuel of the future. So much so that bio-orgs like myself (borgs?) can consume it and be trendy in both a health way and a saving the environment way.