[Robotgroup] Tissue Growth

[Def Egge]

Many years ago, I worked in the laboratory that finished 2nd in the 
race to propagate cotton plants via tissue culture.  The plants 
produced has some serious chromosomal configurations, mostly abnormal.

Needless to say, the monetary reward for finishing in 2nd place was 
proportional to the length of time that anyone remembered who 
finished 2nd (the same probably applies to Olympic athletes, as well).

During that span, I did a lot of reading on work that was proposed to 
enable regrowth of amputated limbs for Viet Nam veterans.  The models 
the research was based upon were amphibian limb and reptilian tail 
regrowth models using electromagnetic fields to stimulate and guide 
the regrowth.

The only downside was that, in mammals, the regrowth led not to limb 
buds, as desired, but to tumors.  The research was largely 
buzz-killed after that unintended consequence.

I think that I would choose to adapt to the missing digit rather than 
to have a sub-delta surrogate that needed chain-sawing for remediation.

DNA = Don't kNow Anything ... seriously, the best is yet to come.

Thanks for the link.


All the best....

Mike

At 21:03  2007/02/19, Glenn Currie wrote:
>A while back while on a Linucon panel, I mentioned the growth / regrowth
>rate
>of human tissue.  The templates are in our DNA.  The basic tissue generation
>can be accomplished in about 4 to 8  weeks.  ( the time needed for a broken
>bone to heal, for example). So far, researchers have only
>been able to trigger relatively low level sequences.
>
>The human genome project has provided us with the basic coding sequences
>needed - but this is only a start.
>
>There are segments of human DNA that seem to be essentially dormant, not
>expressing themselves in any discernible way.  Other sequences hold low
>level construction instructions.  The large amount  of meta data
>contained in
>human DNA is not revealed by a simple examination of the low level sequence.
>
>Figuring out how the meta data structures work is a task that will be
>with us
>for some time.
>
>But, we do not always need to understand every last detail about how
>something
>works, in order to make use (or misuse) of it.  The following article
>provides some updated
>info on tissue growth.
>
>http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070219/ap_on_sc/regrowing_fingers;_ylt=AirhmjGVNWVA0HepbYPIoY7MWM0F
>
>New, basic, body parts are only  4 - 8 weeks away, if you know the meta
>sequence or, at least, how to trigger it.  Organs might take a bit
>longer than
>limbs, as many meta sequences would be needed, relative the number needed
>for a "simple" limb.
>
>Training neural tissue presents another
>challenge.  Even if the tissue for a brain could be generated relatively
>quickly,
>some sort of training would still be needed.  This would be a bit like
>programming
>a Field Programmable Gate Array, (FPGA) of vast proportions - less vast
>for Aggies,
>of course.  Fingers and Aggies first.
>
>
>
>... back to the lab...
>
>Cheers,
>
>-Glenn
>
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