And the lymph nodes near the liver are close enough to receive chemical distress signals sent out by the dying tissue of a diseased liver, says Lagasse. These signals are meant to encourage any remaining healthy liver tissue to regenerate, but this doesn’t work in cases of severe disease. However, the signals do appear to help along the growth of liver tissue in neighboring lymph nodes.

“It’s incredible,” says Gouon-Evans. “Having this little incubator in the body [that can grow organs] is just amazing.”

researcher holding a syringe and watching an ultrasound machine

LYGENESIS

Around five years ago, Lagasse, along with entrepreneur and drug developer Michael Hufford and transplant surgeon Paulo Fontes, founded LyGenesis to take the technology further. The team are exploring the use of lymph nodes to grow new thymuses, kidneys, and pancreases.

But the company’s priority is livers. Over the last 10 years, members of the team have collected promising evidence that suggests they can use

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What TrueCut Motion did for “Avatar” was twofold. First, using a very complicated mapping and visual creation technology, they converted the film from 24 fps — how it was shot — into 48 fps. Then, using their adjustable technology, they added a certain kind of visual blending that balanced the cinematic “heft” of a classic piece of cinema with the oily smoothness of a 48 fps presentation. This is not the same as motion smoothing, but a new kind of total visual alteration. The judder is eliminated, and so too is the soap opera aesthetic of a “Hobbit” movie.

To date, the Pixelogic team has only been tinkering with recent, digitally shot movies, so further experiments with older movies shot on 35mm film haven’t been done just yet. As projectors continue to evolve, however, movies may soon reach a point where a digitally rendered classic may not look as good

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