Artificial organ to become stronger and lighter, limiting the amount of extra energy necessary to operate the limb. Additional materials have allowed artificial limbs to look much more realistic. Prostheses can roughly be categorized as upper- and lower-extremity and can take many shapes and sizes. New advances in artificial limbs include additional levels of integration with the human body. Electrodes can be placed into nervous tissue, and the body can be trained to control the prosthesis. This technology has been used in both animals and humans. The prosthetic can be controlled by the brain using a direct implant or implant into various
Human artificial chromosome resulted in a human artificial chromosome that is mitotically stable. 21HAC was also able to be transferred into cells from a variety of species (mice, chickens, humans). Using 21HAC, researchers were able to insert a herpes simplex virus- thymidine kinase coding gene into tumor cells. This "suicide gene" is required to activate many antiviral medications. These targeted tumor cells were successfully, and selectively, terminated by the antiviral drug ganciclovir in a population including healthy cells. This research opens a variety of opportunities for using HACs in gene therapy. In 2011, researchers formed a human artificial chromosome by truncating chromosome 14.