Heartbeat in the laboratory
The University of Minnesota has developed a new method of creating hearts for transplants. One of the biggest problems of those who are investigating the creation of new organs from stem cells is to achieve a complete structure of the organ. That is, despite the obtaining of the functional cellular set, it is very difficult to make the whole organ. To overcome this problem, Minnesota researchers propose to use as support the organs of the dead or of another species.
In their experiment with the heart, they have used the heart of a dead adult mouse to get the support, in which they have introduced a mixture of heart cells of a newborn rat. Previously all the cells of the heart of the adult mouse have been cleaned up to obtain a pure collagen structure. Then, they have introduced the cells and in a few days, thanks to an electrical stimulus, they have managed to give pulsations.
They have tried not only with the heart of the rat, but also with the pork. In fact, the hearts of pigs and people are very similar, and the heart valves of pigs are already used in the transplants. It is, therefore, that some day the patient's own cells are incorporated into a support as well as a heart transplant obtained in the laboratory. However, to achieve this, researchers will have to take many steps.
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