Meet the Revolutionary Apple That Grows Human Skin – Futurism – Futurism

Whats In An Apple?

Apples are a staple in most peoples homes and, it seems, in science. There was Newtons apple, and the proverbial daily apple to keep your doctor away. Now, biophysicist Andrew Pellingof University of Ottawa wants to add an apple of his own into the mix and this one might bring with it the future of biomaterials and human tissue repair.

Many scientists thought the idea of this apple itself was a little fruity. Pelling said that his team did not have many cheerleaders when they startedto look for ways to grow human cells by biohackingfruits.

Nobody else is doing this. In fact, in the early days people thought Id lost my mind, Pelling said during a TED Talk earlier in 2016. What Im really curious about is if one day it will be possible to repair, rebuild, and augment our own bodies with stuff we make in the kitchen.

How Pellingsteam achieved this was rather simple, he said. To remove the apples cellular material, they bathed it in boiled water and liquid dish soap. As a result, the apples cells popped open. After the apple was washed clean of all its disgorged cellular material, what was left of it was a rigid cellulose scaffolding like an apples skeletal structure, so to speak. The spaces that once contained apple cells were then filled with mammalian cells.

Pelling demonstrated the success of the technique on several occasions, and in some playful ways. For instance, his teamcarved apples into the shape of human ears and then infused them with skin cells. The apple-ears were remarkably life-like.

Pellings method is, of course, still in its early developmental stages. At this point, it cant be tested on human beings. The team did test it on mice, though. Pelling injected cellulose scaffolding under the skin of lab mice. Amazingly, the mice didnt show any adverse immune reactions to the infusion. Within a few months, the animals body had populated the scaffolding with their own cells. The scaffoldhad become part of the tissue, Pelling said.

These studies have spurred two doctors from hospitals in Ottawato expressed their interests in Pellings work. The doctors are brainstorming possible medical applications of this technique with Pelling. One potential is for regenerative medicine, particularly as scaffolds to graft skin and bone. The scaffolds currently used these procedures are derived from collagen harvested from human cadavers, which can be cost-prohibitive.

A toonie-sized piece of traditional scaffolding material costs $1,000. Weve developed a material that could be just as good for a fraction of a penny, Pelling said. Plus, would you want a piece of cadaver in you, or a piece of apple?

But why stop at just apples? Pelling and his team are also looking at the potential of cellulosescaffolding derived from asparagus or even rose petals to be used as biomaterials to repair bone or nerve damage. And thisjust one way that biohacking can revolutionize our lives.

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Meet the Revolutionary Apple That Grows Human Skin - Futurism - Futurism