Medical Researchers Working on Regrowing Breast Tissue after Mastectomy

Posted by John Farrier in Medicine on November 12, 2009 at 3:15 pm

Scientists at the Bernard O’Brien Institute of Microsurgery in Melbourne, Australia, are developing an implantable device that they hope will regenerate lost breast tissue. In The Daily Telegraph, Bonnie Malkin writes:

During the world-first trial surgeons will implant a chamber containing a sample of the woman’s fat tissue into the chest, which will act a “scaffolding” into which new breast tissue will grow.

“What we are hoping to do in the next two years is develop a biodegradable chamber so that the fat can grow inside the chamber and then the chamber will vanish naturally,” Dr Marzella said.

“Nature abhors a vacuum, so the chamber itself, because it is empty, it tends to be filled in by the body.”

Dr Marzella said the new breasts would feel normal to the patient.

The trial is believed to be just the second time in the world tissue engineering has been carried out in a human.

Link via Popular Science | Image: NASA

 
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Salamander Discovery Could Lead to Human Limb Regeneration

Posted by Miss Cellania in Science & Tech on July 2, 2009 at 11:49 am

Humans have always been fascinated with the salamander’s ability to regenerate lost limbs. Now scientists studying salamander genes have discovered that the process isn’t quite as complicated as once thought.

By tracking individual cells in genetically modified salamanders, researchers have found an unexpected explanation for their seemingly magical ability to regrow lost limbs.

Rather than having their cellular clocks fully reset and reverting to an embryonic state, cells in the salamanders’ stumps became slightly less mature versions of the cells they’d been before. The findings could inspire research into human tissue regeneration.

“The cells don’t have to step as far back as we thought they had to, in order to regenerate a complicated thing like a limb,” said study co-author Elly Tanaka, a Max Planck Institute cell biologist. “There’s a higher chance that human or mammalian cells can be induced into doing the same thing.”

Researchers are hopeful, but also aware that early experiments in replicating this cell process can lead to uncontrolled growth, meaning cancers. Link

 
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