Scientists bring dead hearts to life
Jan 15, 2008
IN experiments that would make Dr. Frankenstein jealous, US scientists have coaxed recycled hearts taken from animal cadavers into beating after reseeding them with live cells, according to a study released on Sunday.
IN experiments that would make Dr. Frankenstein jealous, US scientists have coaxed recycled hearts taken from animal cadavers into beating after reseeding them with live cells, according to a study released on Sunday.
If extended to humans, the procedure could provide an almost limitless supply of hearts, and possibly other organs, to millions of terminally ill people waiting helplessly for a new lease on life.
Approximately 50,000 patients in the US alone die every year for lack of a donor heart, and 22 million people worldwide are living with the threat of heart failure.
“The idea would be to develop transplantable blood vessels or whole organs that are made from your own cells,†said lead researcher and director of the Center for Cardiovascular Repair at the University of Minnesota, Doris Taylor.
While there have been advances in generating living heart tissue, this is the first time an entire, three-dimension bio-artificial heart has been brought to life.
The core procedure making this possible is called decellularisation. In this process, all the cells from an organ — in this case the heart of a dead rat — are stripped away using powerful detergents, leaving only a bleached-white scaffolding composed of proteins secreted by the cells.
In the experiments, this matrix was then injected with a mixture of cells taken from newborn rat hearts and placed in a sterile lab setting, where the scientists hoped it would grow.
After only four days, contractions started, and on the eighth day, the hearts were pumping, according to the study, published in the British journal Nature Medicine. The researchers were stunned.
“When we saw the first contractions, we were speechless,†said Harald Ott, a surgeon at Massachusetts General Hospital.
“We certainly were surprised that it worked so well and so quickly,†Taylor told AFP. In humans the objective would be to inject stemcells drawn directly from the recipient of the donated organ, thus eliminating the danger that the new heart would be rejected by the immune system.
If extended to humans, the procedure could provide an almost limitless supply of hearts, and possibly other organs, to millions of terminally ill people waiting helplessly for a new lease on life.
Approximately 50,000 patients in the US alone die every year for lack of a donor heart, and 22 million people worldwide are living with the threat of heart failure.
“The idea would be to develop transplantable blood vessels or whole organs that are made from your own cells,†said lead researcher and director of the Center for Cardiovascular Repair at the University of Minnesota, Doris Taylor.
While there have been advances in generating living heart tissue, this is the first time an entire, three-dimension bio-artificial heart has been brought to life.
The core procedure making this possible is called decellularisation. In this process, all the cells from an organ — in this case the heart of a dead rat — are stripped away using powerful detergents, leaving only a bleached-white scaffolding composed of proteins secreted by the cells.
In the experiments, this matrix was then injected with a mixture of cells taken from newborn rat hearts and placed in a sterile lab setting, where the scientists hoped it would grow.
After only four days, contractions started, and on the eighth day, the hearts were pumping, according to the study, published in the British journal Nature Medicine. The researchers were stunned.
“When we saw the first contractions, we were speechless,†said Harald Ott, a surgeon at Massachusetts General Hospital.
“We certainly were surprised that it worked so well and so quickly,†Taylor told AFP. In humans the objective would be to inject stemcells drawn directly from the recipient of the donated organ, thus eliminating the danger that the new heart would be rejected by the immune system.