Boston Company Developing Synthetic Organs

Patients waiting for life-saving organs — that's more than 120,000 in the United States — may soon have another option for a second chance at life.

Harvard Apparatus Regenerative Technology, a Boston-based regenerative-medicine company, is developing synthetic tracheas, a venture that it plans to pursue on a larger scale soon, according to MIT Technology Review.

The tracheas are made using the patient's own stem cells, which are taken from bone marrow. The cells are grown on a scaffold made from fibers approximately one-hundredth the width of a human hair, which are then used to create a tube that is tailored to fit each patient. Read more...