New Method For Regenerating Organs

By Our Special Correspondent

NEW DELHI, INDIA. An Indian doctor has achieved a major breakthrough by developing a technique for regeneration of organs and tissues using cells taken from the patients themselves. The technique, which has recently been granted a patent by the U.S. patent and trade mark office, is expected to revolutionalise medical science as it could do away with organ and tissue transplants and thus avoid the problems associated with them.

Announcing the development, the Union Minister for Science and Technology, Dr. Murli Manohar Joshi, said a major advantage of the technique was that donors would no longer be required to replace diseased organs. Also, as the new tissues and organs would be formed within the body using its own cells, there would be no problem of acceptance of foreign bodies, which had been a major drawback associated with transplants. In addition, unlike transplant surgeries, no post-operative treatment by expensive immunosupressant drugs would be required.

The Ministry of Science and Technology, which had already been helping the doctor by providing facilities including attorney fee for the filing of the U.S. patent through its Patent Facilitation Cell, would continue to assist him in every way, he added.

Dr. B.G. Matapurkar of the Maulana Azad Medical College here, who has developed the technique, said organs and tissues of fallopian tube, ureter and uterus have so far been regenerated in dog and monkey models.

Explaining the technique, he said pluripotent stem cells selected from autogenous body tissues like peritoneum and gut were selected and colonised with the tissue and organ systems in the body and then allowed to undergo metaplastic transformation for two to three months, leading to the formation of desired organ or tissue. The breakthrough was in terms of selection and colonisation of the tissue and organ systems.

Alternative To PCs

Addressing a press conference, the Minister also announced the development by a team of scientists at the Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore, of a low-cost portable alternative to personal computers.

Called ``Simputer'', the device is expected to be of immense use in reaching the benefits of IT to the common man, by allowing simple interfaces based on sight, audio and touch to ensure that lack of literacy was no longer a barrier for handling a computer.

The device is expected to find a diverse range of applications, ranging from micro-banking, and large data collection, to agricultural information and as a school laboratory.

Dr. Swami Manohar, the leader of the scientists' team, said a non-profit trust has been formed to promote the technology not as an end product, but as an evolving platform. The information on the device has been placed in the public domain. Several national and international agencies have evinced interest in the technology, he added.

Copyright © 2001 The Hindu.

This article posted September 30, 2001.