8 Incredible Medical Breakthroughs That Are Right Around The Corner

If you don't want to go through the whole rigmarole of donating any of your own tissue for your bespoke, lab-grown organ then, fear not, because scientists have figured out a way to do it without you.

A team of researchers at the MRC Centre for Regenerative Medicine at the University of Edinburgh have managed to grow a complete, fully functional thymus gland from scratch using lab-created cells. The thymus is an organ found close to the heart and it produces the T-cells in your body that are vital to your immune system.

Scientists took cells known as fibroblasts from the embryo of a mouse, which, for obvious reasons are completely unrelated to the thymus of a human, and reprogrammed them in the lab to produce fully functioning thymus cells capable of supporting the production of T-cells.

These were transplanted into a mouse where they were able to grow a complete organ with the same structure and functionality as a "real" one.

This research will directly impact those with diseases and disorders of the immune system, allowing us to treat babies born with genetic conditions as well as older people, as the thymus is one of the first organs to deteriorate with age.

It also opens up the possibilities of doing the same thing with other organs, drastically cutting down waiting times for organ transplants and essentially revolutionising the way we treat a vast number of diseases.