Can we grow organs instead of transplanting them?

[okarol]

Anthony Atala asks, "Can we grow organs instead of transplanting them?" His lab at the Wake Forest Institute for Regenerative Medicine is doing just that -- engineering tissues and whole organs (bladders and, soon, kidneys) using smart bio-materials and cutting-edge techniques.


Anthony Atala's state-of-the-art lab grows human organs -- from muscles to blood vessels to bladders, and more. At TEDMED, he shows footage of his bio-engineers working with some of its sci-fi gizmos, including an oven-like bioreactor (preheat to 98.6 F) and a machine that "prints" human tissue:

VIDEO: http://www.ted.com/talks/anthony_atala_growing_organs_engineering_tissue.html