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Asked by erebus to Anzy, Aoife, Dave, Matt, Tomasz on 14 Nov 2013. This question was also asked by octopus.
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David Christensen answered on 14 Nov 2013:
Stem cell scientists definitely hope it will be possible. Scientists have already grown hearts and kidneys in labs to transplant into rats and had some success. Hopefully we will be able to grow organs for human transplant in the future as well.
One big problem for scientists using embryonic stem cells is that organs produced from these stem cells are likely to be attacked by the immune system of the patient receiving the transplant. iPS cells (induced pluripotent stem cells) might be the answer here as these are stem cells that are reprogrammed to be stem cells, but were originally something else like a skin cell taken from the patient. These will allow us to make organs specifically for a patient so that their immune system will not attack the transplanted organ.
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Matthew Tomlinson answered on 15 Nov 2013:
That is the aim of tissue engineering and I think that it will happen at some point. It very much depends on the organ of interest and how complicated it is, for example a kidney is very complex and will be difficult to recreate, whereas bone and cartilage are a lot simpler and it should be possible to make substitutes for these quite soon.
The most important thing when trying to recreate organs is to get the structure you grow the cells on right. Cells are really clever and will organise themselves into different arrangements so long as the they are given the right things to stick to. Once we can make better, smarter scaffolds then I think we will start to see lab produced organs being grown for transplant, using either adult stem cells or induced pluripotent stem cells.
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