Re:Artificial Skin Manufactured In Fully Automated Process
by biohacker42 on Tuesday May 19, 2009 @10:12AM
(#616810)
This is great! But you also have to monitor the cells for mutation not just bacterial and viral contamination.
Monitoring for mutation is a very tricky thing, it's like you would need a kind of immune system. But if we can do that, it truly would be tissue engineering, and spare parts for everybody would be around the corner.
Re:Artificial Skin Manufactured In Fully Automated Process
by mnemonicsloth on Tuesday May 19, 2009 @03:25PM
(#617443)
and spare parts for everybody would be around the corner.
Spare skin, at least. That's not something to just slough off.
Seriously though, it seems to me that growing something like a heart, which has large-scale structure, would be a lot harder than just growing a few different layers of tissue.
Re:Artificial Skin Manufactured In Fully Automated Process
by biohacker42 on Tuesday May 19, 2009 @04:49PM
(#617592)
It sure wood be. And growing something like a kidney would be even harder. But if we can mass produce healthy non mutated tissue of any kind, that's a big leap forward.
Re:Artificial Skin Manufactured In Fully Automated Process
by pookleblinky on Tuesday May 19, 2009 @03:34PM
(#617457)
This, combined with the report about a robot that can forage for biomass (http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=614006), means we're that much closer to building a race of cybernetic Summer Glau's.
Monitoring for mutation is a very tricky thing, it's like you would need a kind of immune system. But if we can do that, it truly would be tissue engineering, and spare parts for everybody would be around the corner.
Spare skin, at least. That's not something to just slough off.
Seriously though, it seems to me that growing something like a heart, which has large-scale structure, would be a lot harder than just growing a few different layers of tissue.
The future will either be awesome, or scary.