Saturday, October 16, 2004

Jacket Grows From Living Tissue

"Grown using a combination of mouse and human cells, the jacket is currently quite tiny (about 2 inches high and 1.4 inches wide) and would just fit a mouse. Using a biodegradable polymer as a base, the team coated it with 3T3 mouse cells to form connective tissue and topped it up with human bone cells in the hope of creating a stronger layer of skin. The jacket is being grown inside a specially designed bioreactor that acts as a surrogate body. The group hopes that once the polymer degrades, a whole jacket that maintains its shape and integrity will be left behind." (Via Chapel Perilous.)

I envision a future in which everything is alive in some sense or another. Furniture will be engineered wholesale in vats of protoplasm. Buildings will regenerate. Cars will mate. And David Cronenberg will be worshipped as a god.

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