The maverick scientist who’s making ears out of APPLES: Bizarre project could grow cheap body parts from leftover produce

Rooting through bins is not normally a behaviour you would expect to see from a successful scientist.

But Andrew Pelling, a Canadian ‘biohacker’, breaks convention in more ways than one.

The scientist bases his research on being inventive, and has recently published a paper explaining how apples can be used to grow human body parts.

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Andrew Pelling, a Canadian ‘biohacker’, breaks convention in more ways than one. The scientist bases his research on being inventive, and has recently published a paper explaining how apples can be used to grow human body parts

PLAYING WITH SCIENCE 

Mr Pelling’s work is focussed around the idea of using trash to find treasure, because he says playing around is how he trains his mind to remain unconventional. 

‘It’s not some creepy thing,’ said Mr Pelling, at a recent TED Talk. ‘I’m usually just looking for old electronics, stuff I can take to my workshop and hack.’ 

‘the stuff that I’ve built that’s all around me on this stage and the other projects my lab is involved in are all a direct result of me playing with your garbage,’ he said.

‘Play is a key part of my scientific practice. It’s how I train my mind to be unconventional and to be creative and to decide to make human apple ears.’

Mr Pelling’s work is focused around the idea of using trash to find treasure, because he says playing around is how he trains his mind to remain unconventional.

‘It’s not some creepy thing,’ said Mr Pelling, at a recent TED Talk. ‘I’m usually just looking for old electronics, stuff I can take to my workshop and hack.’

The ‘mad scientist’, as TED calls him, runs his own lab at Ottawa University, the Pelling Laboratory for Physical Manipulation.

One of the lab’s latest projects involves creating ‘human’ ears out of cells taken from apples.

The ears cannot hear like those in a human, but are the same shape and contain human cells, or ‘scaffolding’. 

Pelling and his lab did not set about with the intention to grow ears from apples.

The idea stemmed from a conversation they had about Audrey II, the giant monster flytrap from the musical Little Shop of Horrors. They wondered whether they could grow the monster in the lab. 

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Mr Pelling’s wife carved apples into the shape of ears, then took them to the lab where the scientists treated them to turn the apple cells into human cells. Apples carved into the shape of human ears, ready to be implanted with human cells, pictured

‘We took a totally innocent Macintosh apple, removed all the apple cells and DNA and then implanted human cells,’ Mr Pelling said. ‘And what we’re left with after removing all the apple cells is this cellulose scaffold’

Lab member Daniel Modulevsky started working with leaves, removing their cells from the cellulose scaffold that gives plants their structure.

But he had trouble when it came to stripping the leaves’ waxy coating. When he spotted another lab member eating an apple one day, he decided to use apples instead.

‘We took a totally innocent Macintosh apple, removed all the apple cells and DNA and then implanted human cells,’ Mr Pelling said.

‘And what we’re left with after removing all the apple cells is this cellulose scaffold.’

Mr Pelling’s wife carved apples into the shape of ears, then took them to the lab where the scientists treated them to turn the apple cells into human cells.

The scaffolds can be implanted in the body, according to a recent paper Pelling and his colleagues published in the journal PLOS One.

Mr Pelling (pictured) started a company, Spiderwort, which has developed machines to help other people make these scaffolds and has made the technology open source, with the instructions available online

HOW THE PELLING LAB MADE HUMAN EARS FROM APPLES

The researchers took cells from an apple and removed the apple cells and DNA.

After this, what was left wasthe ‘cellulose scaffold’ which gives plants their shape and texture.

Removing the apple cells left what appears as holes in microscope images of the apples.

Scanning electron microscope image of a similar cellulose scaffold revealing its three dimensional nature and large cavities. Scale bar = 200 µm

Then, the researchers implanted human cells into the samples.

These human cells can be seen as the blue parts in the image below, taken by a scanning electron microscope, after staining reveals the human cells.

At first this was done using a strip of apple, in an ordinary shape. 

Then, Mr Pelling’s wife carved apples into the shape of ears.

These ears were taken to the lab where the scientists treated them to turn the apple cells into human cells.

SEM image of a cellulose scaffold cross section after being seeded with human cells that were allowed to proliferate for four weeks. The cells were digitally colourized in order to increase contrast between the cells and cellulose structure (Scale bar: 50 µm)

The significance of this project lies in how cheap apples are compared to other ways of building body part scaffolds.

‘Commercial scaffolds can be really expensive and problematic, because they’re sourced from proprietary products, animals or cadavers,’ he said. ‘We used an apple and it cost pennies.’

‘We founded a mission-driven company, and we’re developing kits to make it easier for anyone with a sink and a soldering iron to make these things at home.’

Mr Pelling’s company, Spiderwort, has developed machines to make these scaffolds and has made the technology open source, with the instructions available online.

The technology is not for sale yet, but pre-sale information can be found on the company website. 

Being able to grow organs from a patient’s own stem cells would help the worldwide organ shortage.

Scientists are well on their way to making specialized stem cells that could be seeded onto a scaffold and become livers, or hearts, or skin.

But one challenge remains, which is the scaffolds themselves. Since traditional methods, which involve building them from animals, cadavers or proprietary materials, are complex and expensive.

The lab is also looking at other produce, like asparagus, which could help repair spinal cord injuries.

‘What I’m really curious about is if one day, it will be possible to repair, rebuild and augment our own bodies with stuff we make in the kitchen.’ 

The lab is also looking at other produce, like asparagus, which could help repair spinal cord injuries. Andrew Pelling pictured, holding asparagus