Different Body Parts That Are Grown In A Lab!

The Fallopian Tube

Using stem cells, scientists from the Max Planck Institute for Infection Biology in Berlin have actually grown the innermost cellular layer of the human fallopian tube. This is the structure that connects the ovaries with the uterus!

The Minibrain

A lab has grown a brain which is the size of a pencil eraser from skin cells by cultivating these. The Ohio State University (OSU) scientists state that this brain size is structurally and genetically similar to a brain of a 5-week-old human foetus.

The Miniheart

Researchers have prompted stem cells to develop into different heart muscles and connective tissues, which were later organised into tiny chambers and voila - it was the "beat."

Kevin Healy (University of California, Berkeley), a professor of Bioengineering and co-senior author of this interesting study has stated,"This technology could help us quickly screen for drugs likely to generate cardiac birth defects, and guide decisions about which drugs are dangerous during pregnancy."

The Minikidney

A team of Australian scientists grew a minikidney, by differentiating the stem cells to form organs with three distinct types of kidney cells. According to the reports, the researchers grew the organoid in a process that followed the normal kidney development.

The Minilung

Researchers from several institutions collaborated and decided to grow 3D lung organoids, which developed a bronchi and the lung sacs.

Jason R. Spence, a senior study author, who is also an assistant professor of Internal Medicine and Cell and Developmental Biology at the University of Michigan Medical School stated, "These minilungs can mimic the responses of real tissues and will be a good model to study how organs form [and] change with disease, and how they might respond to new drugs".

He further added that the minilungs survived in the lab for more than 100 days.

A Ministomach

Though this sounds impossible, but it is actually possible! Researchers have revealed that a ministomach can take about one month to cultivate in a petri dish! The "oval-shaped, hollow structure" resembles one of the stomach's two sections.

The Vagina

A study was published in a leading journal that described the successful transplants of lab-grown vaginas, created by nurturing the patients' cells on a vagina-shaped scaffold.

According to the researchers, the transplants were conducted several years earlier in a few girls and young women who were aged between the ages of 13 and 18.

It was done to correct a congenital defect in which the vagina and uterus were missing or underdeveloped. The teenagers were examined annually for over 8 years after the transplants to check if the organs functioned normally.

Penis

Scientists at the Wake Forest Institute for Regenerative Medicine have apparently used rabbit cells to grow the penile erectile tissue. It was later transplanted onto male rabbits, which then mated successfully. Since the process is still in the experimental stages, an approval is needed to transplant this in humans.