piet11111
22nd October 2008, 20:45
http://bobim.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=88&Itemid=37
The Bernard O'Brien Institute announced a significant advance in tissue engineering (http://bobim.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=blogcategory&id=36&Itemid=54) when it revealed how scientists had created living heart muscle cells from human fat. Scientists at the Institute became the first to convert stem cells from human fat (http://bobim.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=16&Itemid=50) into beating heart cells (http://bobim.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=34&Itemid=51). The development has important implications for treatment of heart disease if repeated and developed in clinical trials. In future, hearts damaged by heart attacks or congenital abnormalities may be repaired with heart tissue generated from the patient's fat. Such treatment would eliminate the problems of tissue and organ rejection. It would also overcome the shortage of donor tissue because fat tissue is in plentiful supply.
The next step is to implant the human heart cells onto the damaged heart of a laboratory rat to see whether they repair the heart. Then they would be trialled in higher species such as sheep and pigs before human applications could be considered. Clinical application could be five years away, depending on progress in the next experiments.
hooray for animal testing !
The Bernard O'Brien Institute announced a significant advance in tissue engineering (http://bobim.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=blogcategory&id=36&Itemid=54) when it revealed how scientists had created living heart muscle cells from human fat. Scientists at the Institute became the first to convert stem cells from human fat (http://bobim.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=16&Itemid=50) into beating heart cells (http://bobim.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=34&Itemid=51). The development has important implications for treatment of heart disease if repeated and developed in clinical trials. In future, hearts damaged by heart attacks or congenital abnormalities may be repaired with heart tissue generated from the patient's fat. Such treatment would eliminate the problems of tissue and organ rejection. It would also overcome the shortage of donor tissue because fat tissue is in plentiful supply.
The next step is to implant the human heart cells onto the damaged heart of a laboratory rat to see whether they repair the heart. Then they would be trialled in higher species such as sheep and pigs before human applications could be considered. Clinical application could be five years away, depending on progress in the next experiments.
hooray for animal testing !