scipaScientists finally create a beating heart
January 31st 2008 01:27
Using a host of complicated technology, scientists at the University of Minnesota have demonstrated the creation of a beating heart.
It's a marvelous step forward for the countless people that are waiting for a heart transplant, and it also suggests that other organs are possible to grow in a lab as well.
They accomplished this feat by taking a dead animal's heart, removing all the muscle and tissue, leaving just the framework of veins and arteries. Then, stem cells from rats were planted, and they grew into a functioning heart.
Amazing!
Of course, the technology uses stem cells from animals, which means a move to human organs would be incredibly controversial. Eventually, though, medical science will have to move in this direction... think how lives could be saved, how many ailments reversed?
It's a marvelous step forward for the countless people that are waiting for a heart transplant, and it also suggests that other organs are possible to grow in a lab as well.
They accomplished this feat by taking a dead animal's heart, removing all the muscle and tissue, leaving just the framework of veins and arteries. Then, stem cells from rats were planted, and they grew into a functioning heart.
Amazing!
"Harald Ott, of the Massachusetts general hospital, said: "We just took nature's own building blocks to build a new organ.When we saw the first contractions we were speechless." Peter Weissberg, medical director of the British Heart Foundation, said: "This study is an important first step on a very, very long journey. The key thing it shows is that if you take immature heart cells and give them the right scaffolding they will reorganise themselves into something that looks and functions like a heart. We've never been sure that was the case before."
Of course, the technology uses stem cells from animals, which means a move to human organs would be incredibly controversial. Eventually, though, medical science will have to move in this direction... think how lives could be saved, how many ailments reversed?
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