Biotech miracle looms

MELBOURNE is poised to become a biotechnology "miracle factory", with its stem cell research bringing tailor-made body parts closer to reality.Made-to-order bones, heart tissue and breasts, as well as restoration of fetal kidneys and lungs, are all being touted by research centres as real possibilities.
The Bernard O'Brien Institute of Micro-surgery is using a new type of stem cell - Induced Pluripotent stem cells - to grow bone and cartilage in specific lengths and widths.
It is also looking at repairing dead heart tissue, to be implanted after a cardiac arrest, and growing a pancreas for diabetics.
"This is the next frontier in reconstructive surgery, trying to get the body to - as much as it can - regenerate itself after injury or deformity," said institute director Prof Wayne Morrison.
"Stem cells have the capacity to completely renew themselves and grow specific tissue. They offer an alternative that wasn't dreamed of before."
The institute has recently been able to grow fat cells, after discovering a "grow switch".

This technique will be used this year in a clinical trial to regrow breasts for five women who had tissue removed during cancer surgery.
It would eliminate the need to use tissue from a woman's stomach to shape the breast.
But it also has enormous potential to use fat to treat the diseases linked with being overweight, such as obesity, diabetes and heart disease.
In the next few months researchers at Monash University and Monash Medical Centre will also start injecting fetal stem cells, taken from the outside of the placenta, into the fetus to stimulate development of kidneys and lungs in under-developed babies.  



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