Lab grown organs replace organ donation

Whether itโ€™s Blade Runner or Star Wars, lab-grown body parts have captured human imagination. With advances in surgical procedures, cell culture (in particular stem cell and iPSC), 3D tissue printing, and biocompatible devices, the possibility of having organs swapped out like car parts is on the horizon. Perhaps you remember the Vacanti experiment in the 1990s, where a human ear was grown on the back of a mouse? The field has advanced significantly since then, debuting 3D-printed trachea and various lab-grown organs and organoids. Fully lab-grown kidneys have even been implanted in rats while lab-grown windpipes have been successfully transplanted into humans. Additional work is ongoing in lab-grown joint tissue, bladders, lungs, and even hearts.