THIRTY years from now, scientists will be growing whole hearts, livers and
even limbs in high-tech labs.
“We just need a reliable source of cells,” says Anthony Atala, a urologist at
the Children’s Hospital in Boston. His team has grown artificial bladders for
beagles using tissue taken from normal dog bladders. The harvested tissue was
cultured until there was enough to “seed” a biodegradable “scaffold”—a
growth surface in the shape of the organ. Transplanted into dogs, the new organs
served their recipients well for the 11 months of the experiment.
Atala’s organs did not use stem cells. But in future, embryonic stem cells…
