New Bioink brings 3D-printing of human organs closer to
reality
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2021/03/210317111755.htm
Scientists in Sweden have developed
a 3D printing material that uses scaffolding made from the patients own stem
cells. The finished products are biocompatible and support new blood vessel growth
into the transplant site. Immediate intended use of this technology is
recreating blood vessels in the lungs that have been damaged by chronic
disease. It is also a step towards being able to 3D print organs that can be
successfully transplanted.
Martina M. De Santis,
Hani N. Alsafadi, Sinem Tas, Deniz A. Bölükbas, Sujeethkumar Prithiviraj, Iran
A. N. Da Silva, Margareta Mittendorfer, Chiharu Ota, John Stegmayr, Fatima
Daoud, Melanie Königshoff, Karl Swärd, Jeffery A. Wood, Manlio Tassieri, Paul
E. Bourgine, Sandra Lindstedt, Sofie Mohlin, Darcy E. Wagner. Extracellular‐Matrix‐Reinforced
Bioinks for 3D Bioprinting Human Tissue. Advanced
Materials, 2020; 33 (3): 2005476 DOI: 10.1002/adma.202005476
Self-organizing human heart organoids in a dish
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2021/05/210520133927.htm
3D printing hearts has just come a
small step closer to us. Researchers are now able to create “cardioids” from
human pluripotent stem cells. These are sesame-seed-sized heart models that
when put in the proper growth medium able to support their survival will
self-organize into a hollow chamber. They do this without the need of
scaffolds. This implies some sort of organizing proclivity and assembly rules
for heart tissue are encoded genetically in stem cells (and probably all
cells).
How to boost muscle
regeneration and rebuild tissue
(Clues about molecular changes underlying muscle loss
tied to aging)
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2021/05/210525113717.htm
In an effort to help solve muscular
degeneration related to age and athletic injury, Musculo-skeletal precursor
cells called myogenic progenitors were added along with Yamanaka factors
(transcription factors controlling how DNA is copied for translation). They
were able to slow the production of Wnt4, which activated satellite cells in a
niche cell environment in muscles that allowed for differentiation and
proliferation of stem cells. The ability to do this allows for reconstruction
to reverse age degeneration or injury in humans, but needs to be tested in
other models because this experiment was carried out in mice.
Limit on lab-grown human embryos dropped by stem-cell
body
https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-021-01423-y
New guidelines from the
International Society for Stem Cell Research have relaxed the 14-day rule for
culturing human embryos, which has previously been a hot-button topic. This
gives researchers studying human pathologies more leeway and time to study
disease progressions beyond early embryonic-states.
Major pull-quote: “In the past
decade, scientists have made increasingly sophisticated models of embryos from
human stem cells, demonstrating one way to study human development while
avoiding the controversial use of embryos from fertility clinics. Such
embryo-like structures are too rudimentary to grow into a person, scientists
say. But relaxing the 14-day limit would allow researchers to compare them fully
with real embryos, and test them as feasible stand-ins for research, says
Lovell-Badge.”
