Scaffolds like these are used to provide structure to 3D printed organs.
Tristan Fewings/Getty Images
You are replaceable
Mary Roach Oneworld Publications (United Kingdom); WW Norton (USA)
Our bodies are made up of many soft, hard and complex parts. When they fail—or don't live up to our expectations—what do we do? Medicine offers some solutions, from dentures to skin, heart or hair transplants, but don't expect to buy yourself a brand new one anytime soon.
IN Replaceable You: Adventures in Human AnatomyNon-fiction writer Mary Roach takes us through some of the most stunning attempts – past and present – to repair, replace or enhance parts of our bodies.
These include artificial teeth worn like earrings in the mouth, lab-grown anuses and gene-edited ones. pork heartseach of which was presented with infectious humor that had me laughing, grimacing, and holding my breath from one page to the next.
I have no doubt that Roach was attracted, in her own words, by the “human element of the search.” She presents brilliantly entertaining accounts of her travels around the world and encounters with individuals—surgeons, scientists, and patients—innovative ways of tuning our bodies.
These meetings come to life thanks to her bold, sometimes mischievous questions. For example, while discussing intestinal vaginas with a surgeon over dinner, she notes that intestinal tissue typically contracts to move food along.
“That could be amazing for a partner with a penis, wouldn’t it?” she asks. “It’s not that aggressive,” the surgeon replies between sips of Chianti.
Roach also experiments with himself. At one point, she visits a surgeon who specializes in hair transplants. She is so fascinated by the process of plucking and transplanting hair follicles from one part of the body to another that she convinces him to transfer some of the hair from her head to another part of her body. Her goal is to “be amazed at the strangeness of a few strands of long, flowing hair on my head growing on, say, my leg.” The transplant attempt fails, but we hardly have time to dwell on our laurels as we move on to the trials and tribulations of growing. stem cell hair. Spoiler alert: we're not quite there yet.
One widely used innovation covering Roach is an ostomy, in which surgeons create an opening in the abdomen to drain bodily waste into an external pouch, or ostomy bag. She meets people who have ostomy bags because of conditions such as Crohn's disease and colitis, the symptoms of which can include bowel inflammation and frequent bowel movements that make it difficult for them to leave the house. Roach discusses the need to reduce the stigma around ostomies and explains the pretty cool technology that makes this possible.
As you'd expect from a book about replacing body parts, there's also a chapter on 3D-printed organs. Roach approaches this topic with due caution. It's not as simple as loading the printer with cells of your choice. Most organs are made up of multiple types of cells that must be arranged in very specific patterns, and even then, the printed tissue usually doesn't have real properties—something that researchers often can't explain.
I highly recommend this book to anyone interested in the human body. But I will warn you that it contains some graphic descriptions of surgical procedures. (Skip to the next paragraph if you don't want to read them.) At one point, Roach describes a tube of fat and blood being removed from a patient as a “raspberry smoothie.” Meanwhile, attaching the leg implant to the femur produces “the sound of a tent peg falling.”
Such sensory detail isn't for everyone, of course, but for those who are willing to accept the messy, wiry, and fragile nature of our bodies, the book serves as a wonderful reminder of how complex we truly are. It has certainly made me feel grateful for all the working parts I have.
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