Artificial womb successfully grows baby sheep (video) April 26, 2017 - 12:43 AMT PanARMENIAN.Net - Doctors at Children's Hospital of Philadelphia have developed a new artificial womb that could benefit the tens of thousands of critically preterm (younger than 26 weeks) births in the US each year. According to a new paper published in the journal Nature Communications, the research physicians successfully kept fetal lambs alive inside a "uterus-like" plastic sack for up to four weeks -- longer than any similar device before it, Engadget said. The concept behind the new artificial womb is fairly simple: fetal lambs were placed inside a soft, temperature-controlled plastic bag filled with amniotic fluid to mimic a real uterus and their umbilical cords were hooked up to a blood oxygenating machine. Unlike previous devices, however, the Philadelphia team's artificial womb uses the animal's own heart to circulate blood, rather than mechanical pumps which can hurt the animal and lead to development problems or lung issues later on. As Alan Flake, the director of the hospital's Children's Institute for Surgical Science, told reporters, the device won't replace a real, living uterus just yet because it can't replicate the earliest stages of development. But for infants born around 22 or 23 weeks -- the earliest a premature child can be expected to survive outside the womb -- the new device presents a better solution than the incubators currently in use in neonatal wards. At the start of the test, the fetal lamb test subjects were roughly the same gestational age as a critically premature human fetus. After four weeks, however, eight lambs were "born" out of the sacks with normal, healthy development and lung function on par with a mature infant. According to Flake, his research team has already been in contact with the US food and Drug Administration and trials of the device could start sometime in the next three to five years. The device itself, however, will likely get a less alarming and more "parent-friendly" redesign in the process, Flake said. Top stories Yerevan will host the 2024 edition of the World Congress On Information Technology (WCIT). Rustam Badasyan said due to the lack of such regulation, the state budget is deprived of VAT revenues. Krisp’s smart noise suppression tech silences ambient sounds and isolates your voice for calls. Gurgen Khachatryan claimed that the "illegalities have been taking place in 2020." Partner news Most popular in the section | The Power of One Dram to benefit Road of Life charity The companies inform that the May beneficiary of The Power of One Dram is the “Road of Life” charitable organization. Kazakhstan welcomes Yerevan, Baku’s agreement to meet in Almaty Kassym-Jomart Tokayev has welcomed the agreement of Baku and Yerevan to hold negotiations in Almaty. Armenia offers to temporarily host, preserve Gaza manuscripts The Armenian Foreign Minister has said Yerevan is ready to help preserve manuscripts from the conflict zone in Gaza. Aliyev says no need for mediators in Armenia-Azerbaijan process Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev believes that Baku and Yerevan do not mediators in the process of normalizing relations. |