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Science: Health: Artificial Organs
Organ Matrix Donation   (+4)  [vote for, against]
What if I told you....that your cells being alive is not that important?

Instead of organ donation, an option to donate the decelluarized matrix of your organs. Turns out when you take tissue and kill the cells only and leave the extracellular matrix behind, stem cells reseeded onto the matrix can reform functional organs. By storing the matrix instead of organs themselves, you can get rid of the "rush to patient" time component altogether. Even if the technology is not quite there yet for some organs, you can start storing the matrix for perhaps the day when we figure out what will work. Also, this may be alot psychologically easier for people or their families to deal with as it is only "non-alive" templates of the organs being reseeded with the cells of the living person.
-- leinypoo13, Sep 21 2012

Stem cell seeded trachea implant http://abcnews.go.c...t/story?id=15354809
[leinypoo13, Sep 21 2012]

New kidney from matrix http://www.sciencen...ansplanted_into_rat
Just saying. [leinypoo13, Apr 21 2013]

Good for bone, and for cartilaginous bits like tracheae and heart valves maybe. Not sure that livers or kidneys have matrices...
-- MaxwellBuchanan, Sep 21 2012


Indeed they do, so do lungs, corneas, arteries and veins. Pretty sure that every tissue has ECM. It is basically a mix of proteins, glycosaminoglycans and hyularanon secreted by cells as they take up residence. It's very interesting how clearly determinative it is for cellular differentiation as opposed to the traditional genetic or epigenetic view.
-- leinypoo13, Sep 21 2012


Fair point.
-- MaxwellBuchanan, Sep 21 2012


I hope this reloaded matrix is less pretentious than the one with Keanu Reeves.
-- MaxwellBuchanan, Apr 21 2013


Tis
-- leinypoo13, Apr 21 2013



random, halfbakery