A team of scientists in Boston has given one rat a second chance at walking.
Doctors from Massachusetts General Hospital have created what they're calling the first lab-grown replacement limb. And the key might have been a fancy type of detergent:
First, all donor cells were stripped with a detergent from the donor leg, leaving just the underlying structure of bones, ligaments and hollowed-out blood vessels, called the scaffolding. Then, the rat's own stem cells were added back in to regenerate veins and arteries and jump-start the formation of muscle. Muscle cells were grown further through electrical stimulation. [CBS News]
Once the muscles were fully grown, the researchers attached the limb onto the lucky rat, whose body accepted the transplant without incident. The process is described in full at the journal Biomaterials.
The Week
Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.
Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
While the rat's surgery could bring scientists one step closer to performing similar operations on human patients, Dr. Steven Badylak, deputy director of the McGowan Institute for Regenerative Medicine, cautioned it will likely be more than a decade, at the earliest.
You can watch a time lapse video of the procedure below: Meghan DeMaria
-
Home Depots are the new epicenters of ICE raidsIn the Spotlight The chain has not provided many comments on the ongoing raids
-
Why does Trump keep interfering in the NYC mayoral race?Today's Big Question The president has seemingly taken an outsized interest in his hometown elections, but are his efforts to block Zohran Mamdani about political expediency or something deeper?
-
The pros and cons of banning cellphones in classroomsPros and cons The devices could be major distractions
-
SpaceX breaks Starship losing streak in 10th testspeed read The Starship rocket's test flight was largely successful, deploying eight dummy satellites during its hour in space
-
Rabbits with 'horns' sighted across Coloradospeed read These creatures are infected with the 'mostly harmless' Shope papilloma virus
-
Lithium shows promise in Alzheimer's studySpeed Read Potential new treatments could use small amounts of the common metal
-
Scientists discover cause of massive sea star die-offSpeed Read A bacteria related to cholera has been found responsible for the deaths of more than 5 billion sea stars
-
'Thriving' ecosystem found 30,000 feet underseaSpeed Read Researchers discovered communities of creatures living in frigid, pitch-black waters under high pressure
-
New York plans first nuclear plant in 36 yearsSpeed Read The plant, to be constructed somewhere in upstate New York, will produce enough energy to power a million homes
-
Dehorning rhinos sharply cuts poaching, study findsSpeed Read The painless procedure may be an effective way to reduce the widespread poaching of rhinoceroses
-
Breakthrough gene-editing treatment saves babyspeed read KJ Muldoon was healed from a rare genetic condition
