NASA is challenging teams to create thick, metabolically-functional human vascularized organ tissue in a controlled lab setting. It's called the Vascular Tissue Challenge, and the first three teams to succeed will split a total prize of $500,000. It's a challenge, but a necessary one for getting NASA one step closer to sending humans to Mars.

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A research team led by investigators at The Saban Research Institute of Children's Hospital Los Angeles has generated functional human and mouse tissue-engineered liver from adult stem and progenitor cells. Tissue-engineered Liver (TELi) was found to contain normal structural components such as hepatocytes, bile ducts and blood vessels. The study has been published online in the journal Stem Cells Translational Medicine.

Joints that can be reconstructed. New tissues or entire organs to replace those damaged in injury or disease. A transplant of healthy beta cells so a diabetic never needs an insulin injection again.

Researchers have discovered that an injection of a protein called IL-33 can reverse Alzheimer's-like symptoms and cognitive decline in mice, restoring their memory and cognitive function to the same levels as healthy mice in the space of one week.

Mice bred to develop a progressive Alzheimer's-like disease as they aged (called APP/PS1 mice) were given daily injections of the protein, and it appeared to not only clear out the toxic amyloid plaques that are thought to trigger Alzheimer’s in humans, it also prevented more from forming.‌‌

A genetic marker placed in the bioengineered skin cells tell scientists where the transplanted tissue is located. If the treatment makes it into humans, the glowing protein wouldn't be included. © Takashi Tsuji, RIKEN

Bioengineered skin complete with functioning hair follicles, glands and nerves has been grown using a new technique that could transform burns treatment and end cosmetics testing on animals.

In the pages of comic books and on the silver screen, superheroes like Wolverine and Deadpool have a “healing factor” that allows their bodies to regenerate and recover from injuries or illness at an amazing rate – but certainly nothing like that is possible in real life, right?

Amazingly, a team of scientists led by John Pimanda, a hematologist and associate professor at the University of New South Wales in Australia, published a study in Monday’s edition of the journal PNASreporting that they had successfully reprogrammed bone and fat cells into induced multipotent stem cells (iMS) – the first step to making such a repair system a reality.

NASA is carrying forward its mission to reach out to new frontiers with the announcement today of plans for a "Vascular Tissue Challenge", a $500,000 prize to be given to the team who can first develop vascular thick tissue that will lay the basis for treatments ranging everywhere from new tissue for burn victims to 3-D organ printing, and providing new organs for all who might need them, when they need them.

The Organ Preservation Alliance, supported by the Methuselah Foundation and incubated at SU Labs at NASA Research Park in Silicon Valley, targets a neglected area of research and medicine underlying one of the world’s largest and mostwell-hidden killers: limitations in organ and tissue storage. Organ and tissue banking can have far reaching effects on treatments for major age-related diseases including Diabetes, Cancer and Heart Disease, while also accelerating the pace of medical research and serving as an enabler of tissue engineering, regenerative medicine, and use of humanized xeno-organs. Technologies to cryopreserve and bank human organs and other tissues for use on-demand can prevent or delay millions of deaths each year worldwide – and make millions more patients, both old and young, healthier.