Originally published July 24 2005
New ways to treat internal injuries
by Mike Adams, the Health Ranger, NaturalNews Editor
Surgeons, who have historically turned to synthetics like Gore-Tex and Dacron to patch up internal damage, are now working to create replacement human tissue from a naturally occurring protein, elastin.
The immune system drives off viruses and harmful bacteria.
But injuries to large organs from trauma or disease are often beyond the body's ability to repair.
For these tasks, surgeons have turned to synthetics like Gore-Tex and Dacron to patch the damage.
"There is really a limitation to what we have available to us for replacement parts," said Dr. Kenton Gregory, director of the Oregon Medical Laser Center, a research facility at Providence St. Vincent Medical Center in Portland.
"What engineers or clinicians reach for is off-the-shelf materials that were not built to go into the body.
A cardiologist by training, Gregory is one of a handful of researchers working to create replacement human tissue from a naturally occurring protein, elastin.
In animal testing, Gregory has succeeded in patching what would usually be fatal wounds to the gastrointestinal tract and other organs with living tissue that is accepted by the body and that eventually becomes part of the organ itself.
It "holds the cells together into tissues and provides natural support and flexibility," Gregory said.
The best-known matrix protein is collagen, which is responsible for the tensile strength of tissue and is used in cosmetic surgery.
But collagen causes blood to clot, and because arterial tissue was the first that Gregory sought to reproduce, he chose to work with elastin.
In mice, Gregory and his colleagues have found, elastin taken from pigs, made into tissue and fused to body organs has been highly effective.
"Often in battlefield injuries, a projectile will destroy large parts of organs or body structures like arteries," said Colonel Robert Vandre, commander of combat casualty care for the Medical Research and Materiel division of the army.
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