>Cellular repopulation has been used for years, a process that injects healthy liver cells into the patient’s damaged organ through a portal vein where they adhere themselves to the existing cellular scaffolding and grow into new, functional liver tissue.

>Creating an immediately available and inexhaustible supply of functioning liver cells from autologous tissue would allow early intervention in patients with hepatic failure and would allow liver cells to be infused over a longer period of time,” the 2016 study’s authors note. “Combined with recent advances in genome-editing technology, such liver cells could be used widely to treat devastating liver-based inborn errors of metabolism and to eliminate the need for a life-long regimen of immunosuppressive drugs and their complications.” The downside to this technique is the pace at which the donor cells proliferate, making it a poor tool against acute liver failure.

>Extracellular Vesicle-based therapies, on the other hand, leverage the body’s intracellular communications pathways to deliver drugs with, “high bioavailability, exceptional biocompatibility, and low immunogenicity,” according to 2020’s Extracellular Vesicle-Based Therapeutics: Preclinical and Clinical Investigations. “They provide a means for intercellular communication and the transmission of bioactive compounds to targeted tissues, cells, and organs” including “fibroblasts, neuronal cells, macrophages, and even cancer cells.”

>EVs are the postal letters that cells send one another. They come in a variety of sizes from 30 to 1000 nm and have exterior membranes studded with multiple adhesive proteins that grant them entry into any number of different types of cells. Exploiting the biological equivalent to a janitor’s key ring, researchers have begun tucking therapeutic nanoparticles into EVs and using them to discreetly inject treatments into the targeted cells. However, these treatments are still in the experimental stages and are most effective against acute liver failure and inborn metabolic diseases rather than end-stage liver failure.

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The following submission statement was provided by /u/Sariel007:

>Cellular repopulation has been used for years, a process that injects healthy liver cells into the patient’s damaged organ through a portal vein where they adhere themselves to the existing cellular scaffolding and grow into new, functional liver tissue.

>Creating an immediately available and inexhaustible supply of functioning liver cells from autologous tissue would allow early intervention in patients with hepatic failure and would allow liver cells to be infused over a longer period of time,” the 2016 study’s authors note. “Combined with recent advances in genome-editing technology, such liver cells could be used widely to treat devastating liver-based inborn errors of metabolism and to eliminate the need for a life-long regimen of immunosuppressive drugs and their complications.” The downside to this technique is the pace at which the donor cells proliferate, making it a poor tool against acute liver failure.

>Extracellular Vesicle-based therapies, on the other hand, leverage the body’s intracellular communications pathways to deliver drugs with, “high bioavailability, exceptional biocompatibility, and low immunogenicity,” according to 2020’s Extracellular Vesicle-Based Therapeutics: Preclinical and Clinical Investigations. “They provide a means for intercellular communication and the transmission of bioactive compounds to targeted tissues, cells, and organs” including “fibroblasts, neuronal cells, macrophages, and even cancer cells.”

>EVs are the postal letters that cells send one another. They come in a variety of sizes from 30 to 1000 nm and have exterior membranes studded with multiple adhesive proteins that grant them entry into any number of different types of cells. Exploiting the biological equivalent to a janitor’s key ring, researchers have begun tucking therapeutic nanoparticles into EVs and using them to discreetly inject treatments into the targeted cells. However, these treatments are still in the experimental stages and are most effective against acute liver failure and inborn metabolic diseases rather than end-stage liver failure.

Please reply to OP's comment here: https://old.reddit.com/r/Futurology/comments/ybjkyw/the_cuttingedge_cellular_therapies_aiming_to_ease/itgodrs/

An opt out or presumed consent system could help also.

There are many viable and salvageable organs that are just thrown out as medical waste because we can't find the paperwork saying this person is an organ donor. Or because the additional barrier to declare yourself as one is too much effort for some people. Even though they would happily have saved other people's lives after they died.

https://labblog.uofmhealth.org/industry-dx/how-opt-out-donation-could-affect-us-waiting-lists

According to University of Michigan, this could provide up to half of the needed organs (52%).

Many countries are trending this way.

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Yeah, when I was 10 they told me I would have an artificial pancreas in “5 years.” I’m in my mid 30s now. Things are a bit more complicated than they seem.

It seems wild that this isn't already the case

I noticed the article mentioned LyGenesis's approach of growing mini-organs in lymph nodes and that human trials began last month. I'm very curious to see how the human trials turn out over the next year or so.

This explanatory video from LyGenesis was linked in the article: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mnCnkIJ53zY

That's very true. The article does mention that human trials have begun with LyGenesis. The liver is their main focus now, but the pancreas, thymus and kidneys are also in their pipeline: https://www.lygenesis.com/pipeline/

Is there a right to organs? Do US people feel like they have a right to organs? Organ shortage? Am I the only one who thinks that's absurd?

Oh cool, so Repo was just a teaser ad for US healthcare

Your reading comprehension is poor.

There can be a shortage of things even if it’s not connected to an entitlement.

Shortage just means less supply than demand.

There is a shortage of microchips in the world. Nobody is asking if people think they are entitled to microchips. People still want more and are willing to fork out money for it.

There is also a shortage of oceanfront property.

I've heard that too. Even if the improvement is in the lower estimates of 3% - 10%, it seems an opt-out system is worth it and doesn't really have any drawbacks.

>Under the most conservative estimate, it would have reduced the number of people taken off the list due to illness or death by between 3% and 10%. And under ideal circumstances, it might have decreased waitlist removals by 52%

5g already gave us covid and microchips, now they're trying to take over our organs!

Bahh, let me when when the tech is there for a drive-thru transplant.

I really hope we get to that Star Trek 4 future where a elderly lady tells dr McCoy that she’s in the hospital for kidney dialysis. McCoy gives her some pills and says see ya.

Next scene, we see she’s all well spouting “dr gave me some pills and I grew a new kidney”

One can hope.

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It'd be awesome if they could just tear out your guts and replace them like a cordless drill battery.

In some places, those pills would be $500k and only some insurance companies would help pay for them.

I'm still waiting on science to grow spinal discs or at least the government to let us have the M6. On the topic though, we should adopt an opt out system and those who opt out don't get organs.

The demand is the entitlement. Edit: why can't you see this? It is perfectly evident with their example of oceanfront property. Abolish property and there's no longer any demand or entitlement.

In most western countries treatments expensive as that are not uncommon, and equally free to their inhabitants. At least in the UK, The Netherlands, Belgium. In The Netherlands one of the most expensive treatments is one which costs 2.4 million, but it completely cures a formerly 100% deadly degenerative nerve or muscular disease.

Besides, I've got a feeling that that 500k for one pill would still be cheaper for society as a whole than someone who regularly fall ill because of symptoms that accompany organ failure, desperately waiting for a transplant, and then of course hoping for it not to be rejected, which is still a sizeable risk these days for a 'resource' this scarce.

That woman was feeling like a teenager in that clip, no other recovery necessary. Straight back to being a member of society. Yes, more of this black magic technology please.

We are going towards the Repo Man timeline.

as a 27 year old, I'm not opting in, because that restricts my ability to donate my body to a university to help train future surgeons. they may be able to grow the organs, but until A I. improves significantly, we still need people trained to put them in.

In an opt out system, you always have the right to opt out. Without question.

true, but that'd be one extra step between me and doing something productive (given my expected time of death). it's easier for me to say yes to one thing rather than actively say no to one thing and then yes to another.

And that slight inconvenience, which would be no more work than making an account here and typing your comments, is worth half a million lives annually?

(According to the estimates in the Michigan study, based on US numbers only)

>organ shortage

Terrible way to say "not enough replacement parts".

my one body does is not enough to save half a million lives, my original comment was saying why I wasn't opting in, not a comment on a presumed consent system. it seems that you are overly angry about a hypothetical situation where my one opinion decides the laws.

It's also interesting to me how diverse universal healthcare systems can be. For example, the UK approach has government-operated healthcare providers, while the Netherlands has universal coverage through private health insurance.

Anyone interested in reading about different country profiles can do so here: https://www.commonwealthfund.org/international-health-policy-center/countries

I remember in 2000 we were supposed to have printable hearts by 2018...

President Paris Hilton is not inconceivable.

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That's about 50 months on dialysis, not counting the cost of the complications you'll get, and the kidney transplant you'll still need if you want to live longer than six or seven years, and the anti-rejection drugs you'll need after transplant. That $500K pill would be a bargain.

This is why we need Starfleet!

ooh I. just up with an idea to a conspiracy theory...that cops are so trigger happy in usa in order to provide organs for the deep state crew

My idiot brain read the titles and thought cellular = mobile phone and was highly skeptical for about 5 seconds before the covid fog cleared.

Religion. People literally think that their body needs to be whole for heaven

Honestly that probably doesn't even crack the top 10 list of crazy things they believe.

What's wrong with the Asian approach? Where a couple of hotties approach you on the beach flashing some nip. Ask if you want a taste. Next thing you know you woke up with one less kidney. What's wrong with that? If it's not broke, don't fix it.

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The only problem is the dialysis for end stage renal disease is covered by medicare and not insurance. So this would be a medicare problem.

Gotta cure congenital defects before it's ever seen as "barbaric"

Probably not

If you have not noticed then there is a shortage of land. That is the basic property and claim.

There will always be property, animals fight for their patch of land. Even bacteria fight for their patch closest to streams of nutrition.

These are all real estate disputes.

If you don’t have access to good real estate you die.

Humans have just gotten more organized around how they claim ownership vs. Just being alpha male and killing intruders.

Only way to abolish property is to find endless land or to end anything living.

Your version means less people living because more people die from infant deaths and poverty.

> While the liver is the only human organ known capable of regenerating itself, if you damage yours badly enough for long enough — as some 30 million Americans have — then the only treatment is a transplant.

This is needlessly hostile. Not all liver disease is from alcoholism. I have an autoimmune disease that causes liver failure.

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>Organ transplantation will one day be seen as barbaric as blood letting and lobotomies.

That's not really an apt comparison, considering organ transplantations actually work.

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So does blood letting, in certain specific situations. Hell, we still use leeches.

To be fair lobotomies did work just not in an ethical way

So you want to do something productive, but you’re unwilling to be very mildly inconvenienced by a small extra step? Opting out wouldn’t even be a difficult thing, should literally take a few moments.

sweet, one of my kidneys is only 30% functional, go go scientists!!

Very interesting. ‘Could’ someday be outpatient surgery.

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If they’re right they’re gonna have a bitch of a time in the afterlife. The embalming process is going to make their reanimated multi-dimensional ghost corpse less than user friendly.

My body my choice.

Why don’t you donate a kidney? You only need one. And part of your liver now?

I’m ok particularly attacked to mg kidneys. I offered a guy I went to college with a kidney when he was in need. Different blood type, so we didn’t explore it further. I’m swabbed myself and am now a part of some sort of “be the match” bone marrow database in case my marrow can help someone. And no one wants any of my liver. It’s been through a lot.

Pretty sure maggots are still used to clean some wounds, too.

I wonder if this would help with genetic hemochromatosis. (Your body absorbs too much iron).

My grandfather had it and my dad is a carrier, so I believe I'm also a carrier.

As a transplant recipient, fuck right off

Organ donation is a strange industry.

I'm not saying it isn't your choice.

Ironic, in a country where more than half of all men were mutilated at birth.

You're not far off given we seem destined for a cyberpunk future far more than a star trek one

Drive through heart transplant? And would you like fries with that,?

You didn't even mention oceanfront. How weirdly dismissive. My version is a hypothetical you assumed was my position.

Yes, every country does it a slightly different way. Which is great because, winning systems (be them political systems, economic systems, etc.) tend to converge over time to the most successful one.

So, in a few decades, we might know if the German system (health insurance) is superior to the French one (government services), or vice versa.

I'm a transplant recipient. It might seem crude in historical retrospect, but hardly barbaric. There is a great deal of science that has gone into transplant medicine.

It isn't barbaric, in the same way that caesarean section isn't barbaric because we don't have matter-energy transporters. Given the technology we currently possess, the only other option would be inaction.

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Over half a million unnecessary c-sections are performed annually in the United States. Some might consider even one barbaric.

I know you’re just trolling, but I’d like to get your thoughts on this- if “you” are a soul that can live beyond bodily form, then once you leave an earthly body isn’t that not yours anymore?

Edit: I put “you” in quotes because I was thinking of the “‘you’ don’t have a soul, ‘you’ have a body” thought process.

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Dr. Walter Freeman, who brought the practice to America, killed 490 of the 3,500 people he treated, including children. One of the greatest serial killers in American history.

Tissue harvesting is a huge industry in America.

I needed fries after my liver transplant.

I'm going to say something which is very much not controversial in the UK but relatively controversial in NL and the US: Systems that are closer to the NHS work better than systems like the Dutch one which is closer to the US system. So the French system is better by design than the German one. The German one resembles the former Dutch system if I'm not mistaken.

There is absolutely no need pumping around billions of public money in private companies' administrative systems and compete over a few tens of thousands of clients they can't refuse to insure anyway.

I agree. My country (Portugal) also uses a system like the one on the UK or France.

Another perspective would be that years from now they will look back and marvel that we were able to do transplants and save so many lives with just the medicine, technology, and scientific understanding that we had. Because, it’s pretty damn incredible that we can do this right now.

It’s really a way to also say not enough people who are eligible to donate blood, stem cells and organ and tissue do still. Many can be live donors and some of this can be done with relative ease.

#BeADonor

The opt-out system is so key here.

I needed onions after mine.

Wait, half a teaspoon of ground up human skin can go for almost $500? Can I quite literally sell my skin?

That doesn't seem an apt comparison. You describe a systemic issue rather than one of technology and science.

The ability to perform them is available, the onus is on the healthcare provider to apply treatments judiciously.

Agreed. In a similar way to how we look at flight. How quickly humanity has been able to take its first flights to walking on the moon, to now regularly sending probes to Mars and beyond.

a 1 day organ transplant procedure. I used to work in hospitals which did organ transplants.

Surely you have NO idea what's going on with either the human body NOR the complex system procedures used.

Tell us, where's yer medical training?

Oh, now we see....

cellular therapies is NOT a valid synonymic phrase for cloning organs from pigs or humans to do the transplants.

ie. i\t's written by the medically untrained, which creates confusion, rather than clarity.

Sure you did.

Your doubt raises an interesting question: How much of a lowlife does one have to be to not even believe other people can be decent?

What kind of pitiful donkey does one have to be to ask the questions you did. Take your fart gaslighting bs to someone who cares.

This is Reddit. No one is decent. It's a website of self back pats and humbragging

https://www.britannica.com/science/projection-psychology

I'd be in favor of this technology if, and only if, we've also figured out a way to deal with the overpopulation problem.

Being young at 50 works for the Star Trek timeline, because you can go live on any planet or starbase you want to, and not have to worry about money.

On Earth, wouldn't typical countries start to become like India? And if India is already the way it is, wouldn't it devolve into a complete hellscape?

Yes, it sounds selfish of me to say I would be against life-saving technology, because it works too well. But if the alternative is letting much of the world become as overpopulated as India already is, then that's not a price we can afford to pay, even to save millions of lives.

Speak with your words. You can do it!

Having an opinion is not projection. But it is a typical response from people who can’t form cohesive arguments. It bothers their minds so they say it must be other’s problems instead of their own.

I crave onions 24/7 since mine >.>

I fart happy meals since mine!

lol please elaborate 😂

Ok it's only the toys, but you know what I mean!