Creating New Body Parts with the Click of a Button

"How does this technology change our future?" In reference to cnet news article: http://news.cnet.com/8301-13772_3-20002741-52.html?tag=newsLeadStoriesArea.1

Imagine, if you will, a world where the wounded are healed with a sample of skin and the press of a button. Where war vets, scarred from battle, can have new skin reproduced from a device much similar to a computer's printer. Where a kidney can be copied to replace its failing predecessor. No, you have not just entered an episode from Rod Serling's TV series "the Twilight Zone;" this is the present and near future science fiction of our time.

A company called "Organovo" in San Diego, California has created what is known as a commercial bioprinter. This machine takes samples from a patient's fatty skin cells or bone marrow to print off a new slab of skin in order to replace the patient's injuries or impurities. There is no worry for the body to reject the new skin, as it is comprised of the patient's own body.

Despite this great feat, the company is still years away from being able to reproduce entire organs, such as a liver or kidney, but that future is drawing nearer. This technology could mean the extent of lifetime for many individuals, the reconstruction of a injured body part, or perhaps even extend the wild possibilities of cosmetic plastic surgery.

Personally, I find it very interesting, but rather disturbing to be able to reproduce the complex organs of the human body. Scientists are only limited to what the current technology allows. But years from now, after many technological advances have been made, will there be a moral limit to what can be done? Who's to stop scientists from recreating an entire human being? What moral dilemmas may occur from such advances is at the present incomprehensible. Would the recreated organs preform as well as our natural ones? Many speculations and intrigue surround the bioprinting world, but perhaps one day all of this will be common place and socially understood and accepted.