Two Boston surgeons debuted a successful new artificial skin design in 1981 known as Integra, which technically isn't "artificial skin." Instead of replicating the function of healthy skin, Integra "tricks" real skin cells to grow in the damaged dermis. Integra functions as artificial "scaffolding" around which new skin cells can grow. The scaffolding is covered with glycosaminoglycan. The sticky sugar coating mimics the texture of the lower dermis.

On July 2, 2001, heart failure patients were given new hope as surgeons at Jewish Hospital in Louisville, Kentucky, performed the first artificial heart transplant in nearly two decades. The AbioCor Implantable Replacement Heart is the first completely self-contained artificial heart and is expected to at least double the life expectancy of heart patients.

“The implantable bioartificial kidney is an alternative to dialysis and other externally wearable devices that would tether patients or limit their mobility,” Shuvo Roy, a professor in the UCSF Department of Bioengineering and Therapeutic Sciences and co-inventor of the device, said. “Although a live kidney transplant from a matching donor is still considered one of the best treatments, a benefit of the device will is that immunosuppressive drugs to prevent rejection are not required.

Gareth Sullivan and Rick Siller at the University of Oslo say the new method of synthesizing liver cells will increase our understanding of adverse drug reactions and liver disease. The only problem is that they are expensive to reproduce, and are extremely limited in supply and of mixed quality.

“Ears are harder to make than noses because you have to get all the contours right and the skin is pulled tight so you see its entire structure,” said Dr. Michelle Griffin, a plastic surgeon who has made dozens of ears and noses in the lab of Alexander Seifalian, at University College London, the scientist leading the effort.

Alexander Seifalian used material to mold a nose for a British man who lost his to cancer. The team added a salt and sugar solution to the mold to mimic the sponge-like texture of a natural nose. Stem cells were taken from the patient’s fat and grown in the lab for 2 weeks before being used to cover the nose scaffold. Later, the nose was implanted into the man’s forearm so that skin would grow to cover it. The team is now waiting for approval from regulatory authorities to transfer the nose on.

"These minilungs can mimic the responses of real tissues and will be a good model to study how organs form [and] change with disease, and how they might respond to new drugs," Jason R. Spence, senior study author/assistant professor of internal medicine and cell and developmental biology at the University of Michigan Medical School, said in a statement. The lungs survived in the lab for more than 100 days.

Ministomachs that took about one month to cultivate in a petri dish formed "oval-shaped, hollow structures" resembling one of the stomach's two sections, said Jim Wells, study co-author and a professor of developmental biology at Cincinnati Children's Hospital Medical Center. Wells told Live Science that the tiny stomachs, which measured about 0.1 inches (3 millimeters) in diameter, would be especially helpful to scientists studying the effects of a certain bacterium that causes gastric disease.

The thymus gland helps produce the immune system’s T-cells. Scientists from the University of Edinburgh in Scotland took embryonic mouse fibroblast cells and successfully reprogrammed them into thymus cells. Tests in a lab showed that the morphed cells perform the correct functions of normal thymus cells. These were then prepared with other thymus cell types and delivered into a mouse model, where they showed the same functionality and structure as a regular thymus gland.

Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta has performed Georgia’s first-ever procedure to place 3D-printed tracheal splints in a pediatric patient. A cross-functional team of Children’s surgeons used three custom-made splints, which biomedical engineers at the Georgia Institute of Technology helped create using 3D-printing technology, to assist the breathing of a 7-month-old patient battling life-threatening airway obstruction.

“Our focus is what happens to the women who go through chemotherapy and have toxic treatments and therefore their ovary doesn’t work—it doesn’t produce the estrogen or progesterone they need,” post doctoral fellow Monica Laronda says. they hope to make a 3D artificial organ by growing hormone-producing cells onto the decellularized scaffold. Then they can put the artificial organ into mice to make estrogen and replace the native ovaries that were removed.

A neobladder, an artificial bladder, is created using tissues from the intestines to create a new bladder that is very similar to a normal bladder. It is connected to the urethra, which enables patients to urinate normally, eliminating the need for an external bag and allows patients to transition back to their normal life after surgery.

Using stem cells, scientists from the Max Planck Institute for Infection Biology in Berlin grew the innermost cellular layer of human fallopian tubes, the structures that connect the ovaries and uterus. In a statement released on Jan. 11, the researchers describe the resulting organoids as sharing the features and shapes that are particular to full-size fallopian tubes.

A lab-grown brain the size of a pencil eraser was cultivated from skin cells by The Ohio State University (OSU) scientists, and is structurally and genetically similar to the brain of a 5-week-old human fetus; it has functioning neurons with signal-carrying extensions, like axons and dendrites.

At Kuban State Medical University in Krasnodar, Russia, an international team of scientists constructed a working esophagus by growing stem cells on a scaffold for 3 weeks; they then successfully implanted the organ in rats. The scientists tested the new esophagus for durability by inflating and deflating it 10,000 times.