regrowing body parts/TIssue culture.

Id appreciate if someone could post some good articles about regrowing body parts via tissue culture, i cant seem to find any.
I would also like some peoples opinions, do you think that with tissue culture and other sciences that it will be common to regrow body parts for people within our lifetime? for example new legs and arms for people who had them amputated, new breast for women who had breast cancer, new penises for men with penile cancer, new eyes for people with eye injurys, etc.

 

that whole cloning body part thing, I'd heard they'd gotton functioning liver cells on a silica matrix, it was on pbs or some shit like that

 

Scientists have already succeeded in producing artificial skin that is now being used to aid burn victims. I also believe artificial vascular tissue such as veins and arteries is currently in the experimental stage.

The success with these tissues is due to the relatively simple layout, with thickness being the only dimension of concern. Other tissues, like a liver, have three dimensions of complexity, whereby each cell must be properly aligned to function with its neighbors. Further, cellular development is quite a complex process, especially when there are multiple cells that must co-develop into viable tissue.

Since I am at a biomed university I have attended a few lectures on some of the approaches to generating complex tissues. The most interesting solution that I have seen is using a biodegradable polymer matrix to suspend the initial cells in the proper 3D locations so that they may develop in the design of human organ. As the cells grow and divide forming biological tissues, the matrix slowly degrades until all that remains are cells; hopefully in the design of a functioning organ.

I think this approach has some merit, but from my limited knowledge of embryonic development, I do not believe organogenesis is that simple a process. There are additional considerations such as hormone concentration and chemical marker gradients that determine how a simple region of cells becomes a functioning organ. To truly produce human tissue it would require full duplication of the native embryonic environment.

Personally I would not expect to see viable human organs being grown in a lab for over a decade, but I definitely expect to see some incredible advances in the tissue engineering field as a whole. Both from biological derived sources and synthetics created in chem labs.

Some of the new biopolymers have biocompatibility indexes which allow them to be fully integrated into human tissue without adverse reaction. Such has already been used to produce artificial heart valves and cardiac tissue. I believe as the field of bio-responsive material advances (my field of interest), these applications will advance to artificial pancreases beta cells to treat diabetes and replacement for other endocrine organs.

It is my hope to meet that the chemical engineers and biologists will meet half way, as each tackles the field from a different direction.