Progress Towards Artificial Tissue?
From Eurekalert:
For modern implants and the growth of artificial tissue and organs, it is important to generate materials with characteristics that closely emulate nature. However, the tissue in our bodies has a combination of traits that are very hard to recreate in synthetic materials: It is both soft and very tough. A team of Australian and Korean researchers led by Geoffrey M. Spinks and Seon Jeong Kim has now developed a novel, highly porous, sponge-like material whose mechanical properties closely resemble those of biological soft tissues. As reported in the journal Angewandte Chemie, it consists of a robust network of DNA strands and carbon nanotubes.
Soft tissues, such as tendons, muscles, arteries, and skin or other organs, obtain their mechanical support from the extracellular matrix, a network of protein-based nanofibers. Different protein morphologies in the extracellular matrix produce tissue with a wide range of stiffness. Implants and scaffolding for tissue growth require porous, soft materials -- which are usually very fragile. Because many biological tissues are regularly subjected to intense mechanical loads, it is also important that the implant material have comparable elasticity in order to avoid inflammation. At the same time, the material must be very strong and resilient, or it may give out.
Continue. This is really interesting because it's the first time I've heard about serious research towards artificial tissue.
Oddly, this artificial tissue is made out of DNA. Wouldn't it be ironic if we eliminated the DNA in our cells, replaced them with some other information storage mechanism, and used DNA as our tissue? It would be the ultimate insult to our DNA, which I, like Dawkins, view as a "self-interested" molecule with concern for us only insofar as we (the "gene machines") help it reproduce. Our DNA is cruelly indifferent to our welfare except where it overlaps with its own.
May 16th, 2009 - 11:25
DNA is indifferent to everything, it is a freaking molecule. Of course there is also no “selfish gene”. Nature is what it is, anthropomorphism is not helpful.