Slashdot Mirror
Stem Cells in the Heart?
NewScientist reports that researchers have discovered stem cells in the heart, leading them to believe that the heart can regenerate itself. From the article: "The finding raises the possibility that these cardiac stem cells could one day be manipulated to rebuild tissues damaged by heart disease - still the leading cause of death in the US and UK. Because fully developed heart cells do not divide, experts have believed the organ was unable to regenerate after injury. But, in 2003, researchers at Piero Anversa's laboratory at New York Medical College in Valhalla, New York, US, discovered stem cells in the hearts of mice, and subsequently humans. However, they still did not know whether these stem cells actually resided in the heart or had merely migrated there from another tissue, such as bone marrow."
Hey, I'm not a stem cell researcher, and I did read the article...
But there was really not much actual science in this article.
Are we talking about adult, embryonic or.. I assume not, but cord blood stem cells.
I assume we are talking about adult stem cells. These have been discovered and are old news. In fact adult stem cells exist in basically any tissue, which includes the heart... So what exactly was the big news story here about?
Does this mean I won't be getting that gorilla heart?
Let me be the first to say I oppose removal of people's hearts to extract stem cells from them.
This was news a few years ago when some folks got an electric pump installed to assist their failing heart, and their OEM heart recovered to the point where the pump was no longer needed.
Fantastic they discovered stems cells, but the heart repairing itself when relieved of load is not news.
(btw, I don't remember the name of the device used when they discovered this, but it was basically a small, simple liquid pump installed next to the heart. They didn't try to mimic a pulse, figuring it was unneccesary. They were right.)
Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms should be the name of a store, not a government agency.
These pumps are called LVADs, or Left Ventricular Assist Devices, and they have been widely used for years (and continue to be). Here's one site with some pretty general, readable information on them. There are a few varieties (some provide pulsatile flow, like the HeartMate XVE) and some provide axial, non-pulsatile flow (HeartMate II). I don't work for Thoratec, but those are by far the most commonly used ones at my institution. Here is a link to some videos from Thoratec if you're interested. Hope you find this useful.
Now instead of heart attacks from clogged arteries, people can get heart attacks from a kidney forming inside of their heart!
At least people don't need to worry anymore that they'll wake up in a bathtub full of ice with a fresh scar on their side. Why steal a kidney when you can take a heart instead and get a 2-for-1 deal?
"What do you despise? By this are you truly known." --Princess Irulan, Manual of Muad'Dib
/)
Now watch as the stem cells migrate through the circulatory system toward the heart. Many will not make this journey, but the ones that do will survive to become new and improved heart cells. Nature is beautiful, isn't it?
You shall become a poutine.
He was born without an aorta, and has had 20+ surgeries, each time replacing the tubes connecting his heart to the rest of his body with longer ones. If a compatible aorta could be grown just with stem cells, he would have no further need for surgery.
Right now, he is set for a few more years before they have to cut him open again and make adjustments. I hope by then they can just replace the tubes with living tissue and also replace the unsightly scar tissue that has developed from being cut open so many times.
Let's pray to $DEITY that this gets off the ground. I'm pretty sure it will, mindless theologans aside.
Do not downmod posts "overrated" simply because you disagree with them.
Oh so that crazy witch-doctor guy in "Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom" wasn't just performing some satanic ritual...he was harvesting stemcells for the benefeit of medical science...how nice of him.
I am not a medical researcher, but my understanding is that a stem cell is a primitive type of cell that can grow into another type of cell. The fuss about stem cell research is that human foetuses have a large supply of stem cells, because they have not finished growing yet. So harvesting aborted foetuses would be one way to provide stem cells for research. This is controversial for obvious reasons.
However, they still did not know whether these stem cells actually resided in the heart or had merely migrated there from another tissue, such as bone marrow.
Well, bone marrow is reponsible for the production of blood cells, so having stem cells migrate into the blood stream and end up in the organ every ounce of one's blood eventually passes through makes sense to me.
...is much better than an owner of a broken heart
h &mediaid=16787
http://www.internetdj.com/watch_video.php?op=watc
Slightly OTT, yes. But you won't be disappointed. Great tune too. Or if you're a closet case 80s fanatic like me.
A medical college in Valhalla, I thought they just made plans for Ragnarök and had feasts while getting drunk there.
;)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Valhalla
I just shared the news with my roommates, who are going through an awfully difficult break-up.
They've been so upset for so long, and today when I told them about how their hearts can regenerate, I think I saw hope in their eyes for the first time...
A decibel - a RELATIONSHIP between two values of POWER http://arts.ucsc.edu/EMS/Music/tech_background/TE-
preventing heart atacks.
Curing heart diseases is undoutedly important and necessary, but understanding why and how we have heart diseases could lead to less such diseases in the first place.
The problem - and not only with heart related diseases - is that there are quite a lot of life-style related causes, isn't it so?
And changing behaviours (what you eat, how you exercise, how you relate to your fellow human beings etc) is presently more "difficult" (for cultural reasons) than discovering cell manipulation techniques, that is, than intervening (than making a "patch").
That is the tradition bestowed upon us at least since Francis Bacon: the world, including nature and the human body, are objects which we can manage, alter, change to suit our "needs", to extract profit etc, because we can.
Instead of adopting a humbler attitude towards life, the universe and everything, trying to live seamlessly with our environment and with each others, we learned to alter the world so that it would adapat to our whims. The eventual errors, mistakes and disasters that follow such courses of action are tackled with further and deeper interventions.
Is it possible to change centuries of an intervention tradition, to try to understand and adapt to the environment and others, instead of adapting others and the environment to us?
Am I making any sense?
But that is a lot of work!
The easiest way to prevent heart attacks is to pick parents that aren't prone to that issue. Otherwise, if you need your heart fixed, yeah, I'd say patch it up.
This issue is a bit more complicated than you think.
"their OEM heart"
Wow. I've never actually heard organs referred to as OEM.
Imagine an organ transplant...
"Well, sir, we can pop in this OEM model here, but it's pretty pricey. We do, however, have this third-party Korean heart that we could slap on in there, but it would violate your warranty and, lemme tell ya', those boys in inspections on the other side are unforgiving of that sort of thing. Of course, we could just throw a refurb in there, but those can be hard to come by..."
All in good humor of course, thanks for your informative post
Yum! You said Bacon...
*Drools*
Mindless slashdot posters aside too. This involves cardiac stem cells, not embryonic. That means no embryos are destroyed to harvest them, which means no theologans (or even any theologians) are going to be complaining about it. The debate is about embryonic stem cells, not stem cells. Note the emphasis on embryonic. In the future, please keep your flamebait on topic.
Also, this development would not help your friend. These are cardiac stem cells, so they can only develop into cardiac tissue. The aorta is a blood vessel, and is composed of material very different to the heart. It wouldn't help with the visible scar tissue for the same reason.
Just because you're paranoid doesn't mean there isn't an invisible demon about to eat your face
"NewScientist reports that researchers have discovered stem cells in the heart, leading them to believe that the heart can regenerate itself."
O YA THEN WHY DONT WE HAVE ROBOT HEARTS YET?? THIS IS TRUE LUNACY.
"From the article: "The finding raises the possibility that these cardiac stem cells could one day be manipulated to rebuild tissues damaged by heart disease - still the leading cause of death in the US and UK."
More like 12541221423% increase for brain cancer in small children.
"Because fully developed heart cells do not divide, experts have believed the organ was unable to regenerate after injury."
OH I THOUGHT THIS ARTICLE WAS ABOUT HOW IT COULD MAYBE YUO SHOULD PICK A SIDE.
"But, in 2003, researchers at Piero Anversa's laboratory at New York Medical College in Valhalla, New York, US, discovered stem cells in the hearts of mice, and subsequently humans."
VIKINGS DON'T NEED MEDICAL COLLEGES.
"However, they still did not know whether these stem cells actually resided in the heart or had merely migrated there from another tissue, such as bone marrow."
WELL THAN WHAT WAS THE POINT OF THIS ARTICLE???
I've always believed that eating the heart of a fallen enemy would give me his courage. Getting his stem cells to boot is a totally unexpected bonus.
You assume theologans know and understand the difference. Some do, but a hell of a lot don't. They just hear the word stem cells, remember that their preacher said they were bad, and immediately go off. Its really an amazing brain washing system they have.
I still have more fans than freaks. WTF is wrong with you people?
Strange, I would have said nearly the same thing about the original poster.
Just because you're paranoid doesn't mean there isn't an invisible demon about to eat your face
Those damned stem cells have infiltrated you from within.
I don't know a great deal about genetics, but if the aorta is missing because of a genetic mishap, then wouldn't placing stem cells in place just 'not' make another aorta because that genetic thingy is damaged which builds it?
Now I'm confused.
Task Mangler
keyword: cardiomyocytes
videlicit:
http://www.geron.com/pressview.asp?id=744
and
http://www.geron.com/showpage.asp?code=prodsthr
heart disease, high blood pressure, and cancer.
So now it will be relatively easy to imitate Dr Who's regeneration ability. Remember the Doctor has two hearts, too, so we could grow an extra heart also. Hmmm...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1lJUdZqoOdU
SCIREV.NET - fanfics,reviews & more
You do have an extremely valid point. Many will probably poo-poo your thoughts, however (which is sad).
We live in a society in which we really don't respect what fragile gifts our bodies are. The mantra seems to be "you could be hit by a bus tomorrow so live it up!!". While it is true that at any time your body can cease to function for a myriad of reasons, chances are you are going to live to see 60. What then? Living an entire life smoking, eating like a slob, and sitting on the couch will have taken a toll. You are going to put all your eggs in the medical science basket? Assume they can cut you open and make you all better? I've seen those who live their whole life abusing their bodies. It isn't pretty. You may be still biologically functioning, but that sure isn't living.
The attitude in society should regard medical advances as a gift. A suppliment to a life of good eating and good living. As a way to give your body another 10 years which it might otherwise not have had. Sadly, it is viewed as an expectation.
If an officer ever threatens to taze you, say you have a pacemaker.
Since most cells in the heart are "terminally differentiated" or incapable of generating new cells, where does cardiac scar tissue come from when some cardiac tissue dies?
Either some of those termianlly differentiated cells regress to an earlier state and then divide to create scar tissue, or scar tissue is the result of rapid division by cardiac stem cells, or there's something else happenning.
Does anyone have any data on this?
fuck, there goes the dead fetus market.
It took them that long to make the announcement? Valhalla has known about organ regeneration for nigh on 1500 years now!
I say this because I know that there have been efforts to block research on ALL stem cells from ideological grounds, and not just embryonic stem cells. It is the reason why the US lead in stem cell research is shrinking.
And the cardiac stem cells could be used for other purposes as well eventually. It's funny how your argument contradicts itself, because if it were true, then embryonic stem cells would HAVE to be used for the aorta, making your rebuttal to my argument invalid anyway!
Do not downmod posts "overrated" simply because you disagree with them.
That would be true if it were initial growth, or if you wanted to summon the body to grow an aorta on its own. But an aorta could be made from generic stem-cell-cultured tissue, and it would be accepted by the body's other cells.
Do not downmod posts "overrated" simply because you disagree with them.
Embryonic stem cells would most likely not be useful for regrowing an aorta; at least, if they were, your friend would constantly have to be taking anti-rejection drugs, as they wouldn't be his stem cells used. Embryonic stem cells are mainly being used (AFAIK) to research techniques. It's easier to use embryonic than adult in research. But once the techniques are refined, they'll actually use adult stem cells from the patient, as that would not result in rejection by the body.
Even if embryonic stem cells could be used for your friends aorta, your comment in the previous post would still be wrong - the stem cells mentioned in the article will have absolutely no effect on your friend.
Just because you're paranoid doesn't mean there isn't an invisible demon about to eat your face
Same with that girl who dumped you in eighth grade.
After I got done modding you down, I decided to tell you why.
You are completely full of shit. Go out and find me a single even vaguely credible group that has any sway with US lawmakers that is against all stem cell research and not just embryonic stem cell research.
There have been absolutely no efforts by any even quasi-mainstream groups (religious or otherwise) to stop stem cell research. There might be some crazy groups out there against stem cell research, but I would bet money that they are a crazy group that is already against using all medicine.
"the reason why the US lead in stem cell research is shrinking" is not because of any efforts to block stem cell research on any ideological grounds. If the US is slacking in stem cell research it is because they are behind in embryonic stem cell research due to a lack of federal (not state, many states still give money) government funding or due to a general lack of funding in R&D. No one has come out against non-embryonic stem cell research with any sort of creditability or clout, religious or otherwise.
This sort of dumb drivel that you just spewed just muddies the waters of real and worthy debate. Any conservative with even half a brain cell who reads your post is going to quickly dismiss you as a fucking idiot (and rightfully so) because you are so completely off with your facts that it is scary. It confirms in their head that liberals are fucking retards who don't understand even the basics of a conservative argument.
Do me a favor and go fucking educate yourself before opening your mouth and making everyone on the same side as be associated with your fucking idiotic self.
A chick flick aimed at cardiologists.
However, there is promising research that shows that myovascular cell structures can be grown from pluri- or omni-potent stem cells, particularly from bone marrow. Also, advances are being made in developing more and more complex organ systems using "bio-scaffolding" -- in effect put myovascular stem cells in an aorta shaped matrix an grow them in vitro, then "install". Never say Never.
I don't trust atoms -- they make up stuff.
Don't know about regeneration, but usually there is heavy scarring.
Join the Slashcott! Feb 10 thru Feb 17!
Also refer to the NIH Hematopoietic Stem Cells. There's tons of research going on, so tell your friend to hang on...
I don't trust atoms -- they make up stuff.
But we've been doing adult stem cell therapy to treat previously untreatable heart desease in Thailand for a couple of years already. It isn't approved yet in the U.S. so people come here to do it, including some famous people (sort of), like Don Ho (story http://www.breitbart.com/news/2005/12/23/D8ELPR3G8 .html)
Actually, heart disease is just the effect.
The *cause* of heart disease in the UK & US is actually fudge brownies!
(nobody seems to care much about getting the f**king fat masses off of their fat asses -- the only real cure to the problem).
Oh, no! This means that the Bush Administration will soon outlaw owning a heart! At least, one funded by taxpayers.
Nuffsaid
________
Don't know about his cat, but Schroedinger is definitely dead.
I have leaves and shoots growing off my stem cells.
Nature is not an idiot. She did not spend 4 billion years or so evolving homo sapiens just to overlook stem cells as the source of repair for all our medical problems. She has intimate knowledge of stem cells. If she doesn't use them, they don't work. It's not like she doesn't care. She's built, laboriously, a magnificent immune and repair system.
Stem cells are one of the biggest frauds the scientific-industrial-complex has come up with in years. Already, debt-burdened California has been convinced to fund 3 billion dollars for embryonic stem-cell "research." After much breathless reportage on how stem cells would solve all our medical problems, Proposition 71 passed in November of 2005. http://www.businessweek.com/technology/content/nov 2004/tc20041115_9013_tc024.htm
I bet the gray-haired boys and girls of science are patting each other on the back over this one and guzzling Glenlivet while smoking Cuban cigars.
"It's academic and research institutions like Stanford University, the University of California, and the Salk Institute for Biological Studies in San Diego. Between them, they're expected to receive the lion's share of California's funding plan."
I put stem cell research right up there with atom smashers, fusion power, and a manned trip to Mars as worthless "busyscience" endeavors designed to drain the public purse and steal standard-of-living from the taxpayer.
News media, stop the scientist worship or we'll end up funding a multi-trillion dollar perpetual motion machine built in the middle of some one of the world's major oceans.
E Proelio Veritas.
"She has the heart of a little child... I think she keeps it in a jar in her closet."
This sig has absolutely no significance and serves only to take up screen space and waste the time of the reader.
You assume theologans know and understand the difference. Some do, but a hell of a lot don't. They just hear the word stem cells, remember that their preacher said they were bad, and immediately go off. Its really an amazing brain washing system they have.
If they are "real" theologians, then its the preacher who would be listening to them, not the other way around. And yes, a "real" theologian would understand the difference.
Wait a second, there's no stem cells in the heart, that guy's a fuckin vampire ! Run you idiots !
Wanna fight ? Bend over, stick your head up your ass, and fight for air.
The big news is that the heart was thought that it couldn't repair itself after damage has occurred. Damage like minor heart attacks (which people often don't even know about, yet still have them) create scars on the heart. Over time, the build up of these scars reduces the hearts ability to function properly. Now we learn, that there may be new hope in a heart that could regenerate. Think of all the lives that could be saved. That's the big deal!
Researchers look at stem cells as magic pixie dust able to cure all ills. Fact is the heart damage you mention - infarct is the term commonly used - is permanant. Just like if you lost a toe to frostbite. Lives are already being saved in huge numbers with other interventions - stents, implanted pace makers and defibrillators. There are real life-extending results in this area.
an ill wind that blows no good
So harvesting aborted foetuses would be one way to provide stem cells for research. This is controversial for obvious reasons.
Why stop there? Why not kill off people for organ transplants, too? Of course, you couldn't be too blatant about it. Instead, the government can create a big DNA cross-referenced database. A senator needs a new heart? Find a match in the database and that person has an unfortunate accident the next day. An oil tycoon needs a liver? Well, you get the picture.
Of course, it would be controversial, too. But hey, it's all for the common good, right?
The objective is to learn how those HPCs work, how they fail and how they can be repaired or failure prevented.
The assumptions are:
- The human body is, amongst other things, a very complex biochemical processing facility,
- There are a vast number of homeostatic control processes in the human body,
- Just as thousands of genes are coded for using only four DNA bases, the many different homeostatic control mechanisms are probably variations on a very
limited number of underlying control processes,
- Combining insights from several different investigative and analytical disciplines is probably the best approach, and
- Progress made in understanding any one HPC will likely help in understanding many others.
Who would you recommend for such a team?Thanks in advance,
Morris Schneiderman
Morris at Projects Done Right dot com
As a teenager, you'd probably have picked the wrong ones ;-)
With hearts now being the key to unlocking the mysteries of our bodies, we should see a decrease of funding going for lobying for abortion, as fetus's decrease in monitary value. Infact, we might just see more more open heart surguries going south. Ya, bad time to have a heart condition... "well, there was nothing more we could do..."
Completly Joking of course, I know as well as anyone that stem cells hold the secrets to the universe and will cure all deiseases and make us Gods. (whatever happened to all the tree huggers that said the unexplored (but being mowwed down) rainforrest was going to cure all our diseases? huh, must of moved on to stem cells...
Now I can't get that Deee-Lite song out of my head.
"Stem cells in the heaaaaeaaaaaaaeaeaeaaaaaaart"
As I remember - about 3 years ago they found (via autopsies of hart transplant patients) that about 4 years after the transplant surgury, the hart had been partially replaced by the patients OWN cells.
This was determined by microscopic examiniation and DNA analysis.
This should NOT have happened by the (then) current theory that the hart could not repair itself.
It now appears that what causes the lack of repair is circulation problems, caused by scar tissue.
The stem cells come from the normal celluar repair mechanism.
BTW, the bone marrow only produces red blood cells - not stem cells.
The only thing we have now is, "Which do we kill for stem cells... the old fuckers like myself (jk) or the unborn"
Similarly, some heart illnesses are hereditary, and not preventable by reducing fat, stress, etc.
Prevention, where available, is certainly better than cure, but let's be careful not to accuse all patients with cardiac damage of causing the damage themselves through bad choices.
When they initially identified the cells in 2003, it was unclear whether they were true cardiac stem cells or if they were just some haematopoetic stem cells that had migrated to the heart - the difference being cardiac stem cells would have a greater capacity for regeneration of cardiac cells. In this new paper, Leri demonstrates that these are indeed cardiac stem cells, and shows how they can be isolated. These findings should make possible the discovery of drugs or factors that can promote the proliferation of these cells into cardiac muscle cells -- and provide an effective treatment for a the number one killer in industrialized nations (more than all cancers combined).
"They just hear the word stem cells, remember that their preacher said they were bad, and immediately go off."
Like how many people react to the word 'nuclear'?
Bit of trivia: MRI (Magnetic Resonance Imaging) used to be called NMR (Nuclear Magnetic Resonance) but it was changed because of dumb people who would be too scared to have one done even to save their life because of their irrational fear of the word nuclear.