Longevity science

Researchers at Melbourne's St Vincent's Hospital is working on developing human organs by building body cells layer by layer using a 3D printer.

The team has used the 3D printer to make body cells, including muscle cells, nervous systems cells and cartilage. Professor Mark Cook, director of neurosciences at St Vincent's Hospital, said 3D body part printing was like 'bubble jet printers'.

While the word prosthesis usually evokes images of artificial legs, arms, and these days even sophisticated thought-controlled hands, an entirely new class of replacement body part has now become a reality – the bionic eye.

One of the pioneers in this field is California-based Second Sight and the company has now announced that its Argus II System has received U.S. market approval from the Food and Drug Administration (FDA).

To improve bone healing, researchers at Edinburgh and Southampton universities have used a honeycomb scaffold structure, which allows blood to flow through it, enabling stem cells from the patient’s bone marrow to attach to the material and grow new bone.

Over time, the plastic slowly degrades as the implant is replaced by newly grown bone.

Engineers at Duke University have now found that by attaching graphene to a stretchy polymer film, they are able to crumple and then unfold the material, resulting in a properties that lend it to a broader range of applications, including artificial muscles.

Blood clots are one way in which the body heals itself after injuries on even the tiniest level. The process is fast, reliable and goes on every minute of the day without our being aware of it.

Now, a team led by MIT assistant professor of materials science and engineering Alfredo Alexander-Katz is studying blood clots as a new model for producing self-healing materials.

This week's video news from Singularity Hub gives you the top blurbs on skin cancer, stem cell veins and more...

Whichever marketing genius came up with the Apple catchphrase, "There's an app for that," has a lot to answer for – or brag about. It's heard so often these days that it’s become a cliché. Touch Bionic’s i-limb ultra revolution robotic artificial hand gives yet another reason to repeat the phrase. It’s linked to a smartphone app, which allows for greater control of the hand, including the ability to program it to suit the wearer’s personal needs

Cornell bioengineers and Weill Cornell Medical College physicians have created an artificial ear that looks and acts like a natural ear, giving new hope to thousands of children born with a congenital deformity called microtia.

They used 3-D printing and injectable gels made of living cells to fashion ears that are practically identical to a human ear.

Over a three-month period, these flexible ears grew cartilage to replace the collagen used to mold them

In an historic move, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has granted market approval to an artificial retina technology, the first bionic eye to be approved for patients in the U.S.

Metal-on-metal hip implants can cause soft-tissue damage and pain, which could lead to further surgery to replace the implant, the U.S. health regulator said, following several recalls of the artificial hip parts.

All-metal hip implants were developed to be more durable than traditional implants but have become a major cause of concern following several safety issues and user discomforts.

Using implants made from porous biocompatible materials, scientists have recently been successful in regrowing things such as teeth, tendons and heart tissue, plus bone and cartilage. The materials act as a sort of nanoscale three-dimensional scaffolding, to which lab-cultivated cells can be added, or that the recipient’s own cells can colonize.

Now, a Spanish research team has used the same principle to grow new brain tissue – the technique could ultimately be used to treat victims of brain injuries or strokes.

Researchers have deciphered the neural code used by mouse ganglion cells, and used it to create a prosthesis that reportedly restores normal vision to blind mice.

They have additionally deciphered the neural code of monkeys, which is close to that used by humans, so a device for use by blind people could also be on the way.

Scientists have created artificial vascular networks for use in lab-grown organs, using sugar.

Before large three-dimensional human organs can be grown, scientists must figure out a reliable way of incorporating blood vessels into them – if the lab-grown organs simply take the form of a block of cells, the cells on the inside won’t be able to receive any nutrients, and will die.

Now, a team from the University of Pennsylvania and MIT has devised a way of building such vessels, using sugar. The scientists use a relatively inexpensive open-source RepRap 3D printer, which extrudes molten sugar...