Can I Replace My Body?

BREAST

TODAY: Breast are reconstructed with saline sacs or with living tissue, using fat and muscle from the back, buttocks or abdomen

TOMORROW: Breast may be grown in the lab from a patient's own fat cells and infused back through keyhole slits in the chest

HEART

TODAY: Bypasses, angioplasty and transplants to keep blood flowing to the heart muscle. Doctors are beginning to use gene therapy to grow new blood vessels

TOMORROW: Growing functional patches of heart muscle or coaxing existing heart-muscle cells to repair themselves

ORGANS

TODAY: Small slivers of liver tissue can be grown in the lab from one...

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