1.14.2008

University of Minnesota create beating heart

New hope may lie in lab-created heart

Excerpt:

The process is called "decelluarization." To do this, Taylor and her team hung up the heart from a dead rat, introduced a regular soap solution into the top of the organ, and let gravity do the work. The soap moved through the heart's blood vessels, dissolving existing cells, which dropped out of the bottom. This process was repeated until only the outermost casing of the heart was left, resulting in a "white, almost gelatin-looking heart," Taylor explained. This would be the equivalent of the gutted house.

The rebuilding started with injecting new heart cells, in this case cells from baby lab rats, and pumping them through the heart. By treating the cells as heart cells would be treated and using a pacemaker to help them learn how to pump, they grew into a heart that could pump -- essentially rebuilding the organ's interior.

Comment: Truly amazing!

2 comments:

  1. Just because it can be done doesn't mean that it should be done. Why can't we accept that we have only so much time alloted to us to walk this planet and that eventually our bodies are going to fail. Sometimes they fail prematurely, but that's nature's design, too. Death is a part of life, and though we may run, we cannot escape it.

    ReplyDelete

Any anonymous comments with links will be rejected. Please do not comment off-topic