• Question: can i grow a person in a petri dish

    Asked by aaadddaaammm to Ben, Heather, Louisa on 24 Jun 2010 in Categories: .
    • Photo: Ben Still

      Ben Still answered on 24 Jun 2010:

      This is one for the biologists really. A petri dish is just lined with sugars I think, so I don’t think it has the right conditions for human cells to multiply. But think it is possible to grow a human in the right lab conditions, certainly up to later stages of foetal development.

    • Photo: Louisa Chard

      Louisa Chard answered on 24 Jun 2010:

      Not exactly Adam, although we can to an extent so good question. Apart from anything else, there would’t be enough room. We can grow bacteria in petri dishes if we can provide them with a medium called LB broth, that contains all the nutrients required for their growth. We can also grow human cells in a petri dish up to a point if they are provided with enough nutrients. But it is very difficult to provide the right conditions for proper growth and development, so we can only replicate cells for a little while before they die.

    • Photo: Heather McKee

      Heather McKee answered on 24 Jun 2010:

      Woah interesting………….well it’d need to be a pretty massive dish-more like a bath!I know its possible to grow human cells in a petri dish if there are sufficient nutrients however i think things can die pretty quickly/ easily if the environment surrounding them isn’t perfectly suited to their growth. Inner ear cells have been grown in a University in the US –perhaps this is the first step-eh?

      One concern I have is that food companies are now looking to see if they can now use lab-grown fish, chicken, and pork.

      One article claimed ‘ In vitro meat may appear on the market in as few as five years, primarily in processed products like hamburgers and chicken nuggets. The biggest challenge, is scaling up the manufacture of bioengineered meat and bringing the cost down. Researchers have the know-how to produce a petri-dish chicken nugget, but it’s expensive’

      Don’t know how I’d feel about eating meat grown in a jar? How about you?!!

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