Tissue Engineering At Lightning Speed

I thought Ellen Heber-Katz's super-regenerative mice were already pretty impressive. But as it turns out, super-regeneration is only the beginning.

Scientists have managed to produce tissue in a matter of minutes, instead of days. They do this by simply removing water from the starting material.

This method has great potential for people who need tissue for surgery real fast. Normally, growing tissue takes multiple weeks. Using this new method, this time can be cut back a hundred-fold, all the way down to 35 minutes.

UK scientists say they can cut the time it takes to grow new tissue from days to minutes.

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The next stage is to test whether this method could help repair injured tissues. Ultimately, the goal is to design a rapid, inexpensive, automatic process for creating strong tissues which could supply hospital surgical units with a tool kit of spare parts for reconstructive surgery. The speed and control it offers means that our method could one day be used to produce implant tissue at the bedside or in the operating theatre.

Original link: New Tissue Grown In Minutes