2. Biomedical engineering, also called bioengineering is the
application of engineering techniques to the understanding
of biological systems and to the development of therapeutic
technologies and devices.
Notable sub disciplines within biomedical engineering:
Tissue engineering
Genetic engineering
Neural engineering
Pharmaceutical engineering
Medical devices
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3. Tissue engineering
One of the goals of tissue engineering is to create artificial
organs (via biological material) for patients that need organ
transplants.
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4. More than 110,000 people in the
United States are waiting for a lifesaving organ transplant and more
than 20 of them die each day.
Those who do receive transplants
face the risk of rejection, as the
immune system attacks the
foreign tissue, prompting the
lifelong
need
for
immunosuppressant drugs.
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5. • Transplantation also raises a number of bioethical concerns:
how to define when a donor has died, who can give consent for
organ donation, when and how consent can be given, the
medical treatment of donors, and organ trafficking.
• Nowadays, when physicians run out of treatment options, they
look to a nascent field known as bioengineering for solutions to
their patients' ailments.
• They apply engineering principles to biological systems,
opening up the possibility of creating new human tissue,
organs, blood and even corneas. Waiting lists for organ
transplants continue to be lengthy so the race to save lives with
bioengineered body parts is on.
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6. "Biomedical
engineering
is
presently
undergoing explosive growth. The discipline has
now developed an identity of its own, and is
moving into areas such as tissue engineering
and neuroscience that are far from the original
engineering roots of the field. “
Let’s discover how researchers are developing
new techniques to replace diseased human
organs using the patient’s own cells
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7. Note:
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8. Here’s a look at some of the most notable
achievements in recent years.
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10. In 2011, the Fraunhofer Institute for Interfacial
Engineering and Biotechnology introduced a system
that can rapidly manufacture two-layer artificial skin
models. Their Tissue Factory has the capacity to make
5,000 skin sheets in a month.
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11. • A team at Princeton University, led by Associate
Professor of Mechanical and Aerospace
Engineering Michael McAlpine, used 3D printing
technology to make a functional ear from calf
cells and electronic materials. The ear that
debuted in May 2013 is not a simple replacement
— it can pick up radio frequencies well beyond
the range that human ears normally detect.
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12. • Recently scientists have made advances in adding
more biological material to artificial heart devices. In
May the French company Carmat prepared to test an
artificial device containing cow heart tissue. At
Massachusetts General Hospital, surgeon Harald C.
Ott and his team are working on a bioartificial heart
scaffold while MIT researchers recently printed
functional heart tissue from rodent cells.
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13. • Surgeon Anthony Atala directs the Wake Forest
Institute for Regenerative Medicine, and his team’s
bioengineered bladders succeeded in clinical trials. The
bladders were constructed from patients’ cells that
were grown over two months on a biodegradable
scaffold and then implanted. Patients included children
with spina bifida who risked kidney failure. It’s been
several years since then and the results are positive.
“These constructs appear to be doing well as patients
get older and grow,”
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14. • Being able to make blood vessels in the lab from a patient’s
own cells could mean better treatments for cardiovascular
disease, kidney disease and diabetes. In 2011, the head of
California-based Cytograft Tissue Engineering reported
progress in a study where three end-stage kidney disease
patients were implanted with blood vessels bioengineered in
the lab. After eight months the grafts continued to work well,
easing access to dialysis. Then, this month, a team at
Massachusetts General Hospital found a way to bring mature
vascular cells back to an early, stem-like state. They generated
long-lasting blood vessels in living mice.
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15. • In April, after an international team of surgeons
spent nine hours operating on her at Children's
Hospital of Illinois in Peoria, 32-month old Hannah
Warren became the youngest patient to ever
receive a bioengineered organ. Scientists had made
a windpipe for her using her own bone marrow
cells. Born without a trachea, she needed help
breathing, eating, drinking and talking. Harvard
Bioscience created the custom scaffold and
bioreactor for the experimental procedure.
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16. When a ruptured or degenerating disc causes chronic back
pain, treatment is limited. At worst, patients undergo
surgery to fuse vertebrae together and then have limited
flexibility. Over the past several years artificial discs have
emerged as an alternative, but they can wear out as they
work. In 2011, a research team from Cornell University
bioengineered implants using gel and collagen seeded with
rat cells that were then successfully placed into rat spines.
This summer Duke bioengineers took things further, coming
up with a gel mixture they think can help regenerate tissue
when injected into the space between discs.
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17. • Bioengineers are working on it, but the liver is one of
the largest, most challenging organs to recreate. In
2010 bioengineers at Wake Forest University Baptist
Medical Center grew miniature livers in the lab using
decellularized animal livers for the structure and
human cells. This month, a team from the Yokohama
City University Graduate School of Medicine published
results of a study where they reprogrammed human
adult skin cells, added other cell types, and got them to
grow into early-stage liver “buds.” Currently the
scientists can produce about 100 of them
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18. • Little by little, bioengineered intestines are being
grown in the lab to diagnose digestive disorders and to
help patients born without a piece of intestine. In
2011, Cornell biological and environmental engineering
assistant professor John March began collaborating
with Pittsburgh-based pediatric surgeon David Hackam
on a small artificial intestine using collagen and stem
cells. Scientists at Harvard’s Wyss Institute also made a
“gut-on-a chip” to mimic the real thing using intestinal
cells in a tiny silicon polymer device.
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19. • One in 10 American adults will have some level of
chronic kidney disease, according to the Centers for
Disease Control and Prevention. Currently around
600,000 patients in the U.S. have chronic kidney
failure. Most rely on dialysis while a fraction of them
actually get transplants. Scientists from the University
of California, San Francisco are on a mission to create a
sophisticated artificial kidney device made with human
kidney cells, silicon nanofilters and powered by blood
pressure. The project, led by UCSF nephrologist William
Fissell and bioengineering professor Shuvo Roy, aims to
begin testing the kidney device in 2017.
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