• Hey, guest user. Hope you're enjoying NeoGAF! Have you considered registering for an account? Come join us and add your take to the daily discourse.

'Breakthrough' penny-sized nanochip pad is able to regrow organs and heal injuries

Geist-

Member
maxresdefault.jpg

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/science/2017/08/07/penny-sized-nanochip-pad-regrow-organs-heal-injuries/
Scientists have hailed a ”breakthrough" technology capable of regrowing damaged organs and healing serious wounds with the single touch of a penny-sized pad.

The new device uses nanochips to reprogramme skin cells which then generate any type of cell necessary for medical treatment.

The non-invasive procedure takes less than a second and in laboratory trials was found to restore the function of badly damaged blood vessels within days.

Dubbed tissue nanotransfection (TNT), the technique works by placing a small pad of nanochips over a damaged area.

A small electric current then fires DNA into the skin cells, converting them into the specific building block cells of any other part of the body, such as arteries, or even organs like the heart.

It promises to transform the chances of patients in need of complex reconstructive surgery, as well as those whose organs are prematurely ageing.

The US researchers who created the technology say it could even be used as a weapon against neurological diseases like Alzheimer's and Parkinson's.

They believe it will be possible to reprogramme skin cells to harvest brain cells in a peripheral part of the body, such as the arm, which can then be injected into the brain.

The team at Ohio State University have successfully trialled TNT on pigs and mice, with a reported success rate of 98 per cent.

Researchers plan to start clinical trials on humans next year.

Unlike stem cell therapies, TNT would require no laboratory-based procedures ahead of use, meaning it could be implemented in everyday healthcare setting, such as a GP surgery.

Because the new reprogrammed cells are produced under the guidance of the patient's own immune system, there is no need for the immunosuppressant drugs that can be necessary when biological matter is transplanted.

Direct link to scientific journal: https://www.nature.com/nnano/journal/vaop/ncurrent/full/nnano.2017.134.html

I realize that a lot of this popular science stuff is fake or overblown, but the journal seems respected and clinical trials are scheduled for next year, so it looks a lot more promising than other miracle technology that show up on news sites.

Inject brain cells into my brain if old.
 

Iolo

Member
The team at Ohio State University have successfully trialled TNT on pigs and mice, with a reported success rate of 98 per cent.

Did the other 2 percent just not blow up or what?
 

Sophia

Member
As someone who's lost family to Alzheimer’s... jeez I really hope this works on humans. I'd love nothing more then to see dementia eradicated. >_<;
 

Joeku

Member
Because the new reprogrammed cells are produced under the guidance of the patient’s own immune system, there is no need for the immunosuppressant drugs that can be necessary when biological matter is transplanted.

Lmao get fucked Deus Ex and your neuropozyne.

The human trials happening soon are promising.
 
It can heal my heart, yet it cannot heal my heart.

:(

Actually, in 98% of clinical trials the animals, armed with the new knowledge that they could potentially live forever, gained new perspective and stopped caring so much about the trivial inconvenience of their recent break-up.
 

novenD

Member
"We're all pawns of something greater.... MEMES. THE DNA OF THE SOUL."

Now that you have that out of your system, GAF, holy cow. The fact that clinical trials start inside a year is nuts. This could be legitimately game-changing.
 
I need the future in my veins so bad (literally)
My body is so ready (well, not yet, but who knows when I'll get into an accident)
 
Wait, how does shooting DNA into skin cells cause them to transform into other cell lines?

DNA is the blueprint cells use to know how to produce more of themselves. If you change the blueprint, you change the resulting cell.

Now, my question, as with all technological advances, is whether or not I can stick a bunch of these to myself and do an Akira reenactment.
 

thuway

Member
The push for personalized medicine is insane. It's amazing how far we have come. Next thing you know we'll all have micro sensors detecting irregular hormone levels and modulators to blunt the aging process.
 

SRG01

Member
DNA is the blueprint cells use to know how to produce more of themselves. If you change the blueprint, you change the resulting cell.

All of our cells have the same DNA, but they specialize inside the embryo to become different cells. That's why changing specialized stem cells (read: fat cells) into other types was such a hot topic a while back.

Simply injecting "new" DNA wouldn't cause the cell to specialize into something else, nor would it result in spontaneously regrown tissue.
 
Every time I see a story along these lines, I get hopeful for a minute that maybe the damage done to my dad's brain from having a stroke can finally be reversed.

Then I come back down to earth and realize that we're not rich, and even if we were, the stroke was 12 years ago so there's probably no going back from that.

I hope this can help people going forward.
 
I'm not gonna pretend to understand jack shit about this, so being cautiously optimistic about this not being typical science journalism, even a 10% drop in death among trauma victims and a five to ten year addition to the average lifespan would be amazing.
 
Top Bottom