how hard would it be to clone separate body parts?
so my buddy asks me the other day if he could borrow my forearms. this is a wierd question. but this is also a wierd guy. he runs around with a mini matress on his back trying to wrestle boulders?!? so rather then risk my guns to this questionable charactor, Ithought I would just clone him a pair!
I have a few jello molds and loads of spare genetic code. so if any body has done this I have the next few days off so a quick response would be the best
There have been successes at growing things like earlobes on a synthetic form made of collagen, which dissolves once the cartilage has grown through it. Then grafted skin is grown over the cartilage. Similar techniques are being developed for small internal organs and tissues, but I think we’re a ways off from whole arms.
One of the most promising approaches to cloning specific organs starts with stem cells. It’s tricky figuring out what conditions will cause the cells to differentiate into the cell type that you want. Since organs typically contain several types of cells, you also need to figure out how to produce all those cell types simultaneously, and get them to grow in the desired distribution and shape. Those problems are all the focus of current research, so it’ll be a few years before you can grow yourself a new set of kidneys in the bathroom sink. Here’s a recent article on progress with growingheart muscle cells.
sopose you did clone this part would it be a huge task attaching it to another arm? would the nerves and veins decide to grow in the same pattern as they did without stimulas?
this is very interesting to me becasue of my hobby I will have extreme arthirtus(I am guessing)when I am older. also they would be quite marketable.
I remember reading something a while back to the effect that organs may one day be able to be ‘printed’ using something like an inkjet printer; built up from layer upon layer of living cells (of various types) - sounds fanciful, but I believe that some (experimental) success has already been achieved with this.
Well hulkish (and with a name like that, I can understand why your friend would want your forearms) there have been a few successful arm/hand transplants done in the past few years using donor (not cloned) parts. So the actual locations of the nerves/bloodways/etc can be compensated for.
Of course, there’s always the chance that your cloned arms won’t be accepted by your friend (although you obviously won’t have that problem).
To grow new arms or any body parts would take weeks or months of accelerated growth using biotechnology that hasn’t been developed yet…
perhaps faster would be the previously mentioned tissue printer. http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/2683509.stm
with a very fine resolution an arm could built up in a few days or so…eventually the whole body could be copied to order and the old tired brain plonked into it-
then with a higher resolution the brain could be copied down to the last synapse…
then you could send yourself to a remote printer on Tau Ceti…
or with a low-res printer you could print cruelty-free meat joints-
beef, chicken- or a checkerboard pattern of both if that took your fancy.
Using your own tissue types you could print enoromous biceps or hands with extra fingers.
This technology is potentially so useful somebody has got to ban it.
I imagine it’d be a long time; AFAIK, we can’t even do skin, can we? Even that step would be an amazing achievement, applicable to thousands of people with burn injuries.