Science News

Human windpipes grown in laboratories using stem cells have successfully been transplanted into patients with cancerous esophagi. Scientists are now working to grow vital organs, like the heart and liver, but complications arise due to their complicated architecture, "featuring many different types of cells and an extensive network of blood vessels to provide them with oxygen and nutrients." Unless these features can be incorporated into vital organs, which are necessary even at the microscopic level, lab-grown organs will stay small and simple.

In the latest of a series of remarkable studies, researchers from the RIKEN Center for Developmental Biology in Kobe, Japan report that embryonic stem cells grown under special conditions can spontaneously organize themselves into a partial pituitary...

The results of a groundbreaking surgery, involving a woman who received a prosthetic jaw created by a 3D printer, have just been published. Dutch surgeons who performed the operation say it is a one-of-a-kind procedure. Before the surgery, the jaw was designed specifically to fit the woman's face. Then it was sent to the printer, where titanium powder was fused with a laser layer by layer to create a complex implant involving articulated joints, cavities to promote muscle attachment and grooves to direct the regrowth of nerves.