This episode we take on a future full of bioprinted replacement organs.
You asked for more hopeful futures, this is about as hopeful as they get!
We start by hearing a bit about what the current organ donation market is like from Christine Gentry, who donated a kidney to a stranger. Then we talk to Dr. Anthony Atala, the Director of the Wake Forest Institute for Regenerative Medicine and of the world’s leading regenerative medicine specialists. Dr. Atala has implanted organs grown from the cells of patients themselves in clinical trials. Then Kelly and Zach Weinersmith join us to talk about what they learned while writing a chapter about bioprinting for their new book Soonish: Ten Emerging Technologies That’ll Improve and/or Ruin Everything. And finally, we get an impassioned indictment of 3D printing file formats from Meghan McCarthy, Project Lead for the NIH 3D Print Exchange.
Further reading:
- Organ Donation Statistics
- Neural and cognitive characteristics of extraordinary altruists
- Boston woman’s donation creates 3rd-longest kidney transplant chain, saving 28 people
- The Doctor and the Salamander
- How An Economist Helped Patients Find The Right Kidney Donors
- TED Talk: Printing a Human Kidney
- Rebuilding the Breast
- Soonish: Zach and Kelly Weinersmith on 10 technologies that will change everything
- Online Course Bioprinting: 3D Printing Body Parts
- Scientists 3-D Print Mouse Ovaries That Actually Make Babies
If you’re interested in becoming a living organ donor and want to know what it’s like, you can get in touch with Christine Gentry. Her email is christine.gentry@gmail.com, and she’s all about helping people understand donation.
Full transcript available in site.
