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Growing Body Parts

December 13, 2009 12:25 PM

Morley Safer reports on the emerging technology of growing body parts from human cells taken directly from patients, providing new hope for amputees and patients on organ-transplant lists.

(CBS) It sounds like science fiction, but the fact is biotech companies and the government are pouring hundreds of millions of dollars into research they hope will one day make it possible for us to grow new body parts.

It is called regenerative medicine and the goal is to help the thousands waiting for organ transplants and the hundreds of veterans who return from Iraq and Afghanistan horribly maimed.

So far, researchers have created beating hearts, ears and bladders by manipulating cells in the human body into regrowing tissue. The hope is to one day profoundly change human lives....
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