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"SCIENTISTS CLAIM 72 IS THE NEW 30" --- article in Financial Times

From my other blog, MichaelMcGaulley.com.

My technothriller, A REMEDY FOR DEATH: Playing God with Body, Soul, and Bio-tech, is about just that: finding a way to overcome aging and death. In the story-line, we explore issues including regenerative medicine, growing replacement human organs and other body parts, other elements of the bio-tech revolution, and reversing the aging process . . . as well as some of the medical and legal ethical issues involved.

The core issue is this: What if the terms of life have changed . . . for a certain super-wealthy, well-connected elite? What if today's emerging bio-tech and regenerative medical technologies--including the ability to regrow and implant body parts and organs--offer the chance for another whole go-round in life to a select, secretive few?

Intriguingly, this Financial Times also explores that issue, though from a different perspective: "How much longer can we extend life? We just don't know," says Oskar Burger, lead researcher on a pr0ject at the Max Planck Institute in Germany.

Dr. Burger's work focuses on how average human life expectancy has lengthened in large part because of relatively mundane things such as better access to clean water, better agicultural technology, and, of course, antibiotics.

But what if we take those kinds of advances, then combine them with other bio-tech research (only some of which has been tried with humans)? But then that would raise other problems: will those added years be happy and productive? What about the effect on retirement funds? What about the generational chasm that could develop between the "new" 30-year-olds, and the real 30's who are still working?

Here's the link to that article in the Financial Times: "Scientists claim 72 is the new 30" But, warning: you will need to register to get the article (free) , but, frankly, I have never encountered a more cumbersome enrollment procedure. I had to go through it three times, feeling as I did that I was caught in an endless loop --- one of those computer traps that you can't escape from and yet can't finish the job. (The term comes from Po Bronson's Silicon Valley novel: The First $20 Million is Always the Hardest.)


Watch how a lab uses 3D printing plus living human cells to create an implantable human ear

In this blog for the the technothriller, A REMEDY FOR DEATH: Playing God with Body, Soul, and Bio-tech, we've spoken  before about  3-D printers being used in growing human body parts, as well as  other developments in the field of bio-artificial organs:
  • "Need a new body part? No problem. Just use a bio-printer to produce it." Here's the link
  • And, "Creating artificial organs: New 3D printing technique could speed up progress." Here's that link

Now researchers at Cornell have developed a process for creating an implantable human ear to replace ears lost to injury or incorrect development. As described, it's very simple: 1) Laser scan a human ear; 2) print that out on a 3-D printer; 3) add living human cells; 4) wait a while, and 5) there you have it!

Well, actually, like most things technical, it's not quite that simple.  And not something to be tried in your home lab.

Want to know more?

  • From Discover Magazine: "Watch this: 3D printing an implantable ear."   Link  This includes a graphic overview as well as a video with the lead researcher.
  • From the London Telegraph: "Scientists create artificial ear using 3D printing and living-cell gels".  Also a graphic overview and video, as well as a more detailed article. Link

 

 

 

 


"How human beings can now be rebuilt from top to toe with artificial parts"

After I wrote yesterday's post, "How to build a bionic man," I went back through some files and came upon a related article, though a couple of years old (November 2010), which gives a very helpful overview of the various research projects under way to develop artificial parts that may before too very long be used with humans.  (That article by Richard Gray appeared in the London Telegraph. Link Body parts mentioned include:

via www.michaelmcgaulley.com


Reversing the aging process using pig hearts

In a post here yesterday, --Creating artificial organs: New 3D printing technique could speed progress--     I mentioned research under way in Scotland to use 3D printing technology to generate human organs for possible transplant or other kinds of research.  In essence, they spray cloned human stem cells into organs that can--someday-- be transplanted into people whose organs are failing.

via www.michaelmcgaulley.com


"How to build a bionic man"

A bionic man, composed of bio-artificial organs and mechanical parts fused together into a modern Frankenstein creation has made his first television appearanch on England's Channel 4 recently, and has now moved to the Science Museum in London.  His creators--more his fabricators-- have named him Rex.

via www.michaelmcgaulley.com

From my other blog, MichaelMcGaulley.com


REGENERATIVE MEDICINE, STEM CELLS . . . and how to pay for the research

‘The Great Stem Cell Dilemma” — the title of a long, informative article in Fortune Magazine last month (October 8, 2012, Jeffrey M. O’Brien) that pointed out the progress being made in regenerative medicine, mostly using stem cells, though countered by the difficulty in getting the kind of large, longer-term financing needed to take this from the lab to potential mainstream use.via www.a-remedy-for-death.comThis is from my other blog, background and research on my speculative medical technothriller, A REMEDY FOR DEATH

via www.michaelmcgaulley.com