US confirmed cases surpassing 3.3 million by tomorrow. It is likely most Americans have been infected by now.
Coronavirus 2019-2020 thread (no unsubstantiated rumours!)
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vesicles
Colonel
Good question! I've actually worked on that a little bit a few years ago. It's called organoids. Basically, they are exactly as you have described. We grow stem cells into a new organ in culture dishes, and hopefully put it back into a patient. This will eliminate 2 most critical and the hardest issues associated with organ transplants: waiting a long time for a donor, and rejection by the new host's body. Since we simply take the stem cells directly from a patient who needs the transplants, we don't need to wait for anyone to pass away to donate organs. Since the stem cells belong to the patient himself, the entire organ comes from his own cells. So there is no worry about compatibility. A few years ago when I was still interested in this thing, my colleagues were putting sections of lab-grown colon into mice and the mice seemed to be happy with their new colon. As for human, I believe they were successfully growing bladders in the lab. The problem with lab-grown colon is that you need to figure out a way to make them grow into a tube, instead of intestinal balls. A short section of colon is fine for mice, but not for human who has much longer colon...
the ultimate goal of this system is definitely growing new organs for patients. But for now, the organoids can also be used for drug screening. As I have mentioned a while back, using mice to test drugs has been hugely unreliable because mice are so much different than us. What works in mice many times don't work or even becomes toxic to us. Human cells grown in typically flat tissue culture dishes also don't behave the same way as they do in an intact tissue in our body. Working with organoids solves these problems. These organoids are considered ex vivo, meaning that they are considered as actual human organs maintained in the lab. Using them to test drugs would be a perfect thing.
Of course, this was about 2-3 years ago. I have no idea what their progress now. It should be more advanced now. The reason that I got out of the field is that it became boring too me. It is an exciting new clinical advancement, but scientifically it became trial and error to figure out how to make them longer... Not scientifically exciting to me... Plus, it's so expensive... And so much paperwork since I was using human stem cells directly isolated from patients. So much admini stuff to worry about...
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I agree that an untested vaccine is bad idea. Once a vaccine has gone through stage II testing, we can be pretty sure that the side effects are minimal. For the leaders of a country like Brazil with so many infected, it seems a no brainer. The only issue is how effective and for how long would it be effective.
No vaccine has ever been made for the coronavirus family. It is unlikely a vaccine can be made within the next few years even if they work day and night. This family of virus is notorious for not been able to make a vaccine.
Thanks for the reply. I have a relative who has been given a kidney transplant about a year ago and another one that had started dialysis
treatment a few months earlier. Given that there is more demand than supply I took to looking up articles on regenerative medicine.
from sites such as Science Daily which published a brief article on using blastocyst complementation to produce kidneys in mice with some measure of success. But there hasn't been much since.
I read that Covid also damages other organs in the human body, so if this virus goes unchecked could we see a greater amount of premature organ failures which would add to the demand for transplants?
That statement is factually wrong.
Read through the entire thread first before you post, and check your statements independently.
There are multiple vaccines entering Phase 3 trials now.
There was a Phase 1 trial of a SARS coronavirus vaccine back in 2004, but then funding dried up because there weren't new outbreaks, not because it wasn't possible.
Ms Yan lost her job at HK university sometime ago. She lies about Professor Malik Peiris as he doesn't work for WHO. Her husband also a scientist refused to go with her to US. Probably immigration fraud like those FLG cases which requires her to demonize China before getting a green card.
vesicles
Colonel
Yes, blastocysts are embryonic stem cells, different from the adult stem cells in the organoids. Much of embryonic stem cell stuff has been forced to stop in the US because of religious reasons.
I think organ damage by COVID-19 has been exaggerated. Any viral infection could lead to organ damage. Even bacterial infection can cause liver and kidney failures. Food poisoning is actually one of the major causes of kidney failure. So in that sense, COVID-19 is not too much of a difference than any other critters.
I disagree. There is a difference between making a vaccine for a single type of corona virus versus making a vaccine for a whole family of corona viruses such as to prevent a common flu. We failed to make one for the flu but I think Covid-19, being a single type of corona virus, could be contained with one. In the past, there were bad corona virus that popped up, but were under controlled within a few months. We can't develop a vaccine that fast. This thing, on the other hand, is going to be with us either until we get the vaccine or until we achieve herd immunity. An imperfect vaccine in a few months is orders of magnitude better for us than herd immunity. An experimental vaccine that is proven safe but of unsured effectness is immanently better for statesman in highly infected countries than not taking it.