In 2000, a team of archaeologists in the ancient Egyptian city of Thebes uncovered the mummified remains of a young woman called Tabaketenmut. The big toe of her right foot was missing. In its place was a wood and leather contraption tied to the limb with string, which researchers believe to be the earliest example of a prosthetic body part.
This rudimentary device – developed more than 2,000 years ago to help a woman walk – is often cited as one of the first and most primitive examples of bioengineering, the use of artificial components to replace damaged or absent parts of the body.
Today the term has a much broader meaning and includes disciplines such as materials science, biology, mathematics, engineering and computing. And we’ve come an incredibly long way since – thanks to primitive bioengineering – Tabaketenmut walked the earth….read full article
Source: http://scienceblog.cancerresearchuk.org
Posted on by Oliver Childs
