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Stem Cells in the Heart?

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the heart-could-be-heartier dept.

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."

15 of 158 comments (clear)

  1. what exactly is the news here? by aliscool · · Score: 5, Informative

    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?

    1. Re:what exactly is the news here? by Doctor+Beavis · · Score: 5, Informative

      I'm doing some stem cell work in a very similar area and may be able to clarify a few points:

      1. They are not talking about embryonic cells. These are often referred to as "cardiac stem cells" and we each have them in our hearts. Thus they would be considered adult stem cells. As mentioned, their existence was established by Anversa's lab (and confirmed by others) a few years ago. That was a huge milestone, because we previously believed that all cells in the heart were "terminally differentiated" or incapable of generating new cells. We now know that there *are* cells in the hear that can do this, but not fast enough to make a difference in most cases. For example, if you have a heart attack, part of the muscle dies. For whatever reason (not enough cells, don't replicate fast enough, etc.), the cardiac stem cells are unable to completely repair the damage. Current trials of stem cells in the heart have focused on delivering cells derived from other sources (bone marrow, muscle cells, etc.), but it would be ideal to understand enough about the cardiac stem cells to be able to just "activate" them or at least improve the efficiency of what they do.

      2. You are absolutely right we are talking about adult stem cells and even that those exist in the heart is old news. The only news here is that this is a step towards identifying them more efficiently/effectively (which would help as alluded to in my point #1). It's an important step, but an incremental one and I don't think it merited a Slashdot story - I agree with you that it's not that big of a deal.

    2. Re:what exactly is the news here? by Doctor+Beavis · · Score: 5, Informative

      Sort of. The news that there are cells in the heart that can impact repair was news - in 2003, as the article mentioned. This story was that they have gotten better at identifying where those cells are. An important step, but not as important as the 2003 step was.

    3. Re:what exactly is the news here? by UltraAyla · · Score: 2, Informative

      Growing New Heart Tissue

      Although I tend to think that popular science articles like this one are more "look at the cool gadgets we want to exist in 20 years" rather than "look at the cool gadgets that will exist in 20 years," I think this article is very relevant to this topic, especially what you were saying about the heart regenerating itself after damage from minor attacks.

    4. Re:what exactly is the news here? by sumdumass · · Score: 2, Informative

      It maybe that it can. A problem could be that the damaged tissue never leaves though. This would make it apear to not be repiard and maybe even introduce other problems.

      It would be interesting to find out what the effects of removing the damaged tissue might be. Could it be possible that new functional tissue would grow in its place? Maybe enough to get the job done? Of course this is speaking from not knowing how the damaged tissue effect the hearts operation or if it has been tried before.

  2. Heard of this before.... by dfenstrate · · Score: 4, Informative

    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.
    1. Re:Heard of this before.... by maxume · · Score: 2, Informative

      For anybody else scratching their head, they left her heart in when they did the transplant, the new heart was placed next to hers. It makes sense once you stop thinking of the transplant as a remove/replace operation.

      --
      Nerd rage is the funniest rage.
  3. Pumps by Doctor+Beavis · · Score: 4, Informative

    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.

  4. Re:Limited to heart tissue? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Informative

    The motivation for getting them from human embryos is that the stem cells in embryos have almost limitless potential, whereas the ones in a fully grown body merely can help the area they originate from.

    It also means that you can't retrieve, say, brain stem cells without killing the person first.

    Embryonic stem cells don't have the limits that adult stem cells do, and they are much easier to obtain.

    Would you rather be cut open to get stem cell treatment or merely take some medecine?

  5. Re:This would be really helpful for someone I know by LordLucless · · Score: 3, Informative

    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
  6. Re:What about... by slocan · · Score: 1, Informative

    What about... * Quitting smoking (Yes, for some it can be extremely hard.); * Eating a healthy diet (Diminishing the fast food ingestion is a good start.); * Controlling your blood sugar (If you have diabetes. And if you don't too, beacause you can acquire diabetes.); * Exercising (A stroll in the park once in a while can be a nice start, and some would say quite enough.); * Controlling weight; * Controlling your blood pressure (if have hypertension is an issue). http://familydoctor.org/291.xml#4 * Drinking more water (and less alcohol?).

  7. Re:Heart Removal... by AuMatar · · Score: 2, Informative

    Kali is a Hindu goddess, so he wasn't conducting a satanic ritual at all.

    --
    I still have more fans than freaks. WTF is wrong with you people?
  8. Re:Limited to heart tissue? by LordLucless · · Score: 2, Informative

    As far as I understand it, embryonic stem cells are totally undifferentiated cells. Adult stem cells are generally somewhat differentiated. Thus you get the stem cells in this article, which are cardiac stem cells. They don't have the potential of embryonic stem cells to grow into anything, but they can still be used to help regrow damaged cardiac cells.

    Of course, when it comes to actual therapy, techniques will have to be developed that rely on adult stem cells. The whole point of stem cell therapy is that you use your own stem cells to regrow tissue that won't be rejected by your body. If you use embryonic stem cells to regrow stuff, because the stuff regrown is still a foreign body, you'd still be stuck with all the anti-rejection medication current transplant recipients need.

    The primary use of embryonic stem cells is not therepeutic, it's research oriented. Because embryonic stem cells are undifferentiated, it's easier to use them to do research. The idea is that the techniques developed using easy to obtain embryonic stem cells can then be translated into using adult stem cells, which is where the therapies are going to come from.

    I'm not a microbiologist, but that's what I've picked up from the debate.

    --
    Just because you're paranoid doesn't mean there isn't an invisible demon about to eat your face
  9. Re:This would be really helpful for someone I know by Memnos · · Score: 2, Informative

    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.
  10. But we're doing that in Thailand already by asiansweetheart · · Score: 2, Informative

    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)