Conceptually Viable Brute Force Radical Life Extension by Swapping All Old Cells for Young Cells

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A team of Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) investigators has made the first steps towards development of bioartificial replacement limbs suitable for transplantation They had used decellularization technique to regenerate kidneys, livers, hearts and lungs from animal models, but this is the first reported use to engineer the more complex tissues of a bioartificial limb.

They took the leg from recently deceased rat and then:

* Over a period of 52 hours, infusion of a detergent solution removes cells from a rat forelimb, leaving behind the cell-free matrix scaffolding onto which new tissues can be regenerated.

* it is put in a specially designed bioreactor and after 2 weeks it is recellularized

* they graft some skin onto the fledgling leg, and the doctors had themselves their own, home-grown rat limb (minus the bones and cartilage).

* they attached it to a rat

What if instead of taking the leg of dead rat you took the leg of an old rat and recellularized it with its own stem cells.

So if this process were made to work with humans, then all of the organs, limbs and muscles could be recellularized with youthful cells.

After vascular and muscle progenitors have been introduced into a decellularized rat limb, it is suspended in a bioreactor, which provides a nutrient solution and electrical stimulation to support and promote the growth of new tissues. (Bernhard Jank, MD, Ott Laboratory, Massachusetts General Hospital Center for Regenerative Medicine)

An old person who be placed into a bioreactor and progressively get every cell rejuvenated. This would be an expensive procedure but one that would only need to be performed once every 40-50 years.

You could have wearable bioreactors that work on rejuvenating different body parts. A few weeks rejuvenating each limb one at time, and then other body sections. Then a final rejevation of the core body in a whole body tube.

If you could control the locations of recellularization and progressively recellularize the whole body, then it would something like the Star Wars procedure for Luke Skywalker. An old person who be placed into a bioreactor and progressively get every cell rejuvenated

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Reposted via Next Big Future