《Anthony Atala Printing a human kidney》.pdf

Anthony Atala: Printing a human kidney Theres actually a major health crisis today in terms of the shortage of organs. The fact is that were living longer. Medicine has done a much better job of making us live longer, and the problem is, as we age, our organs tend to fail more, and so currently there are not enough organs to go around. In fact, in the last 10 years, the number of patients requiring an organ has doubled, while in the same time, the actual number of transplants has barely gone up. So this is now a public health crisis. So thats where this field comes in that we call the field of regenerative medicine. It really involves many different areas. You can use, actually, scaffolds, biomaterials -- theyre like the piece of your blouse or your shirt -- but specific materials you can actually implant in patients and they will do well and help you regenerate. Or we can use cells alone, either your very own cells or different stem cell populations. Or we can use both. We can use, actually, biomater ials and the cells together. And thats where the field is today. But its actually not a new field. Interestingly, this is a book that was published back in 1938. Its titled The Culture of Organs. The first author, Alexis Carrel, a Nobel Prize winner . He actually devised some of the same technologies used today for suturing blood vessels, and some of the blood vessel grafts we use today were actually designed by Alexis. But I want you to note his co-author: Charles Lindbergh. Thats the same Charles L indbergh who actually spent the rest of his life working with Alexis at the Rockefeller Institute in New York in the area of the culture of organs. So if the fields been around for so long, why so few clinical adv