Word: celling
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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...have scientists managed to do all this without those protean stem cells? Part of the answer is smart engineering. Using materials such as polymers with pores no wider than a toothbrush bristle, researchers have learned to sculpt scaffolds in shapes into which cells can settle. The other part of the answer is just plain cell biology. Scientists have discovered that they don't have to teach old cells new tricks; given the right framework and the right nutrients, cells will organize themselves into real tissues as the scaffolds dissolve. "I'm a great believer in the cells. They...
Moving from the thumb to other hand parts, Charles' brother Joseph Vacanti, a transplant surgeon and tissue-engineering pioneer in his own right, has grown human-shaped fingers on the back of a mouse, demonstrating that different cell types can grow together. He and colleagues at Boston's Massachusetts General Hospital shaped a polymer to resemble the end and middle finger bones. These shapes were seeded with bone, cartilage and tendon cells from a cow. Then the medical team assembled the pieces under the skin of the mouse--"just like you'd assemble the parts of a model airplane," says...
Replacement hearts--or even replacement heart parts--are at least a decade off, estimates Kiki Hellman, who monitors tissue-engineering efforts for the FDA. "Any problem that requires lots of cell types 'talking' to one another is really hard," she notes. Bone and cartilage efforts are much closer to fruition, and could be ready for human trials within two years. And what of those magical stem cells that can grow into any organ you happen to need--if the law, and biologists' knowledge, permit? "Using them," says Sefton, "is really the Holy Grail...
Watkins is the cool one; she sings low and buries her emotions. She received a diagnosis of sickle-cell anemia when she was seven years old, and she continues to suffer from it. (She became a spokesperson for the Sickle Cell Disease Association of America in 1996.) The ailment, on her bad days, makes her feel as if she has "a big old butcher knife" stabbing into her joints. Sometimes, she says, the pain is so excruciating that she can't walk or use her arms, and family members and friends have to feed her. "The only two items...
WHEN LOOKS ARE EVERYTHING Move over, StarTAC. When Nokia's shiny 8800 wireless phone goes on sale this June, it could become the new must-have cell phone. The $500 device with a chrome finish weighs just 4 oz. and sports a sliding keypad cover that doubles as a mouthpiece. The 8800 supports analog, digital and PCS phone networks, so it will work anywhere in the U.S. Then again, you could buy five 6-oz. Nokia 6120s or Ericsson KH-668s for the same total price...