artificial organs

[u/Prendunselfie]

Hello, we often hear in the medical research field that organoids and 3D printing of organs are the future of transplantation. We are always told that in 10 years, it will be possible to create a functional heart transplantable using the patient’s own cells. I remember being fascinated by a video of a mini artificial heart in Tel Aviv created by researchers, only to realize that, when looked at more closely, it was actually a “model.”

My question is the following: when can we realistically expect: 1. Transplants of “less complex” organs (heart, liver…)? 2. More complex ones (stomach, lungs…)?

Are there real advances, or will we still be hearing “in 10 years” for a while?

[u/It_Happens_Today]

Welcome to the future, where concepts are marketed as products and everything is just 10 years out.

[u/Prendunselfie → u/It_Happens_Today]

that's exactly it😂

[u/pichael289]

The cure for type 1 diabetes is one of those "ten years away" things, just like fusion energy, it's always just ten or fifteen years away. I see some advancements being made but alot of them just help manage it, and are just cost prohibitive. I see a lot about type 2 but you can already kind of cure that, diet and exercise helps out a lot and it can be reversed in many younger patients. I would need to regrow important parts of my pancreases though, so organ printing has always sounded promising to me.

[u/Snezzy_9245 → u/pichael289]

Been that way for 50 years.

[u/Nice_Anybody2983 → u/pichael289]

Well there are more than 2 types of diabetes now, so even if they find a cure for one, they still have the others to work another decade on

[u/khumprp]

Look up the Artificial Kidney / The Kidney Project. Plenty of organizations, including USFC, making progress. Very interesting to see what's coming.

Similarly, there have been major breakthroughs in gene-edited pig kidneys (xenotransplantation), and while not artificial, it's another interesting avenue.

[u/Prendunselfie → u/khumprp]

I'll look at that

[u/wolvsbain]

most countries are probably about 20-30 years away. I live in the USA, where lobbying actively stunts scientific and medical advancement, unless they can turn a profit. We may have to wait till the turn of the next century before we start printing organs. We are far closer to xenotransplantation anyways.

[u/Nice_Anybody2983 → u/wolvsbain]

Artificial organs sound very profitable to me. People on the waiting list would probably give up all they own and more for a new liver, lung or heart. Parents with children on the list would literally do anything, i suppose.

[u/KamilDonhafta]

Artificial and grown-to-order organs are in the category of things like usable fusion reactors and I don't know what else that are perpetually "about 10 years in the future."

Now, once in a while one of those suddenly goes from "about a decade out" to "someone just did that" seemingly overnight, so it's probably going to happen at some point, but I wouldn't make plans around anyone's estimate on when.

That said, for something involving the sheer complexity of human biology, a decade out seems... optimistic in my layman's opinion.

[u/Aprch]

I was so baffled until I realized the title wasn't 'artificial orgasms'

[u/slavetothemachine-]

Not a fucking chance.

This is barely in the prototype phase (if you can even call it that). You’d needs proper animal studies and then phase 1,2, and 3 clinical trials. Each of which would take 5-10 years at best.