Broken hearts mend with 'patch'

[steven johnson]

You have heard of tissue expanders to increase the surface area of skin to be transplanted to areas where it is needed. Here is a technique for creating heart muscle by growing it in a biodegradable "scaffold" was seeded with immature cells taken from the hearts of newborn rats. For 48 hours, this was exposed to a cocktail of growth-promoting chemicals in the laboratory. Then it was transplanted into a rat's abdomen where it developed a network of blood vessels and muscle fibres. In human patients, grafts would probably be seeded with cells derived from stem cells.

'Patch' able to mend a broken heart

A "patch" has been made from heart muscle that can be used to fix scarring left over from a heart attack.

Writing in the journal PNAS, the scientists describe how the technique strengthened the hearts of rats that had suffered heart attacks.

The "patch" was grown in abdominal tissue first, then transplanted to damaged areas of the heart.

This experiment is the first to show that such patches can actually improve the health of a heart after it has been damaged.


Broken hearts mend with 'patch'

[tavalon]

1. Oh, my God!

Think of the snowflake babies!:eyes:

:sarcasm:

[Warpy]

3. ROFL! Exactly!

We'd probably be offering the procedure to people with damaged hearts if Stupid hadn't been rigged into office for 8 years to protect the blastocysts and condemn congestive heart failure patients to miserable deaths.

I'm sure the families of the dead are grateful to him for that.

Now we have to look to the socialized medical system in Israel to do what we should have been doing in our universities for the past 8 years.

[tabatha]

2. Yeah, but how much?

Will it cost more than one can afford?

[mopinko]

4. and if they can grow heart tissue,

i think they should be able to grow other parts too, yes? like- i could use some fresh muscle in my throat, so my apnea could be cured instead of just treated. keep trying to figure out why they don't have some sort of carbon fiber to thread through that muscle and stiffen it up.