Scientists say: Bionic body parts that never wear out are a real possibility

U.K- We can rebuild them, we have the technology, we have the capability to build new body parts to allow old people to run like the wind…. well at least not have trouble getting up and down stairs. Scientists are on the verge of creating replaceable body parts that will have a shelf life of forever.

The plan is plan to provide pensioners with own-grown tissues and durable implants.

New hips, knees and heart valves are the starting points, but eventually they envisage most of the body parts that flounder with age could be upgraded. Here at Neebone we are hoping this extends to bionic eyes with built in cross-hairs, and bionic legs with guns inside like Robocop.

The university’s Institute of Medical and Biological Engineering has already made a hip transplant that should last for life, rather than the 20 years maximum expected from current artificial hips. But the question is, when they start running, will they have the Six Million Dollar Man sound effect? It’s a waste of an invention otherwise.

The combination of a durable cobalt-chrome metal alloy socket and a ceramic ball or “head” means the joint should easily withstand the 100 million steps that a 50-year-old can be expected to take by their 100th birthday, says investigator Professor John Fisher.

The concept is to make transplantable tissues, and eventually organs, that the body can make its own, getting round the problem of rejection.

So far they have managed to make fully functioning heart valves using the technique.

It involves taking a healthy donor heart valve - from a human or a suitable animal, such as a pig - and gently stripping away its cells using a cocktail of enzymes and detergents.

The inert scaffold left can be transplanted into the patient without any fear of rejection - the main reason why normal transplants wear out and fail.
Once the scaffold has been transplanted, the body takes over and repopulates it with cells.

Trials in animals and on 40 patients in Brazil have shown promising results, says Prof Ingham.

Professor Christina Doyle of Xeno Medical, the medical device company that is developing the technologies, said the holy grail was to remove the heavy reliance on donor organs.

“That’s where the technology will lead us eventually.”

But she said: “To replace all donor tissue using this technology will take 30 to 50 years. Each single product will need to be designed and tested individually.”

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