watch your child grow infront of your own eyes in about 8 years-
We all have heard about Mary and her little lamb but have you heard that Mary can now watch little lambs grow infront of her own eyes? Some researchers at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia (CHOP) in Pennsylvania, with several tries came up with a Biobag. In this Biobag, they saw 8 little lambs grow just like they would in their mother’s womb.
What is this Biobag? It is a transparent plastic bag filled with artificial amniotic fluid and blood just like a womb .
The CHOP team, directed by pedestrian surgeon Alan Flake started to collect materials which were not needed by the doctors in that hospital and were used in a system called extracorporeal membrane oxygenation …show more content…
The researchers bathed the lambs in artificial amniotic fluid with electrolytes, connected to an oxygenator. Only one animal lived 108 hours with complications. This was not enough
Over the months with the help of surgeon Emily Partridge and fetal physiologist Marcus Davey, they experimented again. This time, they used non circulating artificial amniotic fluid and in a sealed system. Also they used a pumpless circuit which oxygenated the blood of the lambs. It was connected to the fetus lamb through the umbilical cord. The fetus’s heart controlled the circulation.
According to their estimation and examination, 4 weeks later the lambs were taken out from the system and put under artificial ventilator. One of these lambs is, longest surviving by far living, aged 12 months now. This lamb is just like a lamb born in a mother’s womb. It looks, behaves, eats and responds like a normal lamb that is born in a mother’s womb. It was almost impossible to believe that a little plastic would be similar to a womb . This was the first step to an invention of “Artificial womb”.
When Flake and his team published their results in the journal Nature Communications, the science world had a storm. Some were approving while others …show more content…
It may be thought that it will increase the world’s population and stand as a great con to the society. Also, the mother-baby relationship will loose it’s value. This was quickly put to rest when Flake reassured that “transforming” embryos into actual “beings” are not possible. In fact he said the Biobag is for premature animals and babies. It would reduce the mortality rate of premature babies since premature babies usually have serious complications leading to death.
Making this was not easy. One of the biggest challenge was to create the pumpless circulatory system. They connected the fetus lamb’s umbilical cords to the oxygenator. The fetus could power up the blood so that another pump was not needed.
Another critical challenge was to avoid the fetus from getting an infection. They used a bag so that there is no contact with the outside system which can lead to infections. The amniotic fluid goes in and out like in the uterus as well, avoiding infections.
Putting up all the solutions, Flake and his team made this Biobag producing 8 lambs. Ofcourse there are uncertainties. Lambs and babies are never the same but it is expected that the first human trials are set to occur 2 years from now and possibly advance on to the real world after that, if the experiments prove to be a success
We all have heard about Mary and her little lamb but have you heard that Mary can now watch little lambs grow infront of her own eyes? Some researchers at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia (CHOP) in Pennsylvania, with several tries came up with a Biobag. In this Biobag, they saw 8 little lambs grow just like they would in their mother’s womb.
What is this Biobag? It is a transparent plastic bag filled with artificial amniotic fluid and blood just like a womb .
The CHOP team, directed by pedestrian surgeon Alan Flake started to collect materials which were not needed by the doctors in that hospital and were used in a system called extracorporeal membrane oxygenation …show more content…
The researchers bathed the lambs in artificial amniotic fluid with electrolytes, connected to an oxygenator. Only one animal lived 108 hours with complications. This was not enough
Over the months with the help of surgeon Emily Partridge and fetal physiologist Marcus Davey, they experimented again. This time, they used non circulating artificial amniotic fluid and in a sealed system. Also they used a pumpless circuit which oxygenated the blood of the lambs. It was connected to the fetus lamb through the umbilical cord. The fetus’s heart controlled the circulation.
According to their estimation and examination, 4 weeks later the lambs were taken out from the system and put under artificial ventilator. One of these lambs is, longest surviving by far living, aged 12 months now. This lamb is just like a lamb born in a mother’s womb. It looks, behaves, eats and responds like a normal lamb that is born in a mother’s womb. It was almost impossible to believe that a little plastic would be similar to a womb . This was the first step to an invention of “Artificial womb”.
When Flake and his team published their results in the journal Nature Communications, the science world had a storm. Some were approving while others …show more content…
It may be thought that it will increase the world’s population and stand as a great con to the society. Also, the mother-baby relationship will loose it’s value. This was quickly put to rest when Flake reassured that “transforming” embryos into actual “beings” are not possible. In fact he said the Biobag is for premature animals and babies. It would reduce the mortality rate of premature babies since premature babies usually have serious complications leading to death.
Making this was not easy. One of the biggest challenge was to create the pumpless circulatory system. They connected the fetus lamb’s umbilical cords to the oxygenator. The fetus could power up the blood so that another pump was not needed.
Another critical challenge was to avoid the fetus from getting an infection. They used a bag so that there is no contact with the outside system which can lead to infections. The amniotic fluid goes in and out like in the uterus as well, avoiding infections.
Putting up all the solutions, Flake and his team made this Biobag producing 8 lambs. Ofcourse there are uncertainties. Lambs and babies are never the same but it is expected that the first human trials are set to occur 2 years from now and possibly advance on to the real world after that, if the experiments prove to be a success