Growing a living, Functional Heart through Scientific, Powerful Means - Relatively Interesting

Growing a living, Functional Heart through Scientific, Powerful Means

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Science and Technology is an evolving phenomenon that is making great advancements. Science has become a powerful tool in meeting the demands of today.

Science or Creator or Technology Increase

Science is progressive and never feels hindered by human conditions. Science has shown its power by creating a functional part of the human body.  There is a question that remains from this almost reached miracle: Is it ethical to create a body part in the name of science?

People are needing organ transplants. Since a human body is not a reliable recipient, scientists are experimenting with building a heart using stem cells. Are research and science acting in a superpower kind of way? But science is meeting the need of today’s demand for organ transplants.  A simulated environment is created for development.

 

Regenerated heartBernhard Jank, MD, Ott Lab, Center for Regenerative Medicine, Massachusetts General Hospital via Eurekalerthttp://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2016-03/mgh-fhm031116.php

Stem Cells Creating Organs

People are now more than ever needing organ transplants. Since a human body is not a reliable recipient of another person’s organ, scientists have been experimenting with building a heart using stem cells. Some may think research and science are acting in a superpower kind of way. But, in a practical sense, science is only meeting the need of today ’s demand for organ transplants.  Pancreatic cancer is on the rise, and if science is able to build organs in a simulated environment, the medical field will make great advancements.

 

https://www.vita34.com/stem-cells/

Even though 2,500 will receive transplanted hearts only in a year, creating a matrix scaffolding for a heart through the process of decellularization is an intricate process. Is it good, in the name of science and the needs of humanity, to be stronger than nature’s way of forming?

Creating Human Parts

Scientists are adapting human stem cells to build tissue for hearts. They are also using stem cells for cloning. According to an article from “HowStuff Works.com,” which was written in 2008, stem cells were introduced in the creating of cloning an organ. Where do these stem cells come from? Embryos, an entity of human life, is being used (even today) for stem cells. Science has truly evolved since then and is experimenting with a patient’s own cells.  However, where stem cells come from could lead to an ethical question.  Scientists are becoming the creator of body parts, cloning, and defying nature.

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2018/08/180806162716.htm

Technology Advancement: Biomedical Research

Scientists are able to strip away cells that are not beneficial for the maturation of a healthy heart. However, this is still a challenge because a heart needs more nutrition to mature. Researchers are nearing the edge of this creation because they attempted to simulate and build a matrix for the heart to mature.  Imagine a skeletal structure built by human hands instead of by natural means. However, experimentation is needed in order to perfect building a matrix.

Stem cells have been used for repair in other ways. “Stem cells have been used to create new spinal cord cells needed to repair damaged or diseased spinal cords. Progress has been steady but slow and limited.”

Technology in Science for Advancement

Technology is either a scary phenomenon or an avenue toward advancement and change to meet the needs of human beings. Is science moving too rapidly? If organs can be created and survive on the inside of a human with correct immune responses, will scientists one day create a human being? Nature will change as we know it today.

 

Citations:

Cristen Conger “Could we clone our organs to be used in a transplant?” 16 September 2008.
HowStuffWorks.com. 21 September 2018