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Researchers Create Beating Heart In Lab

Posted by kdawson on from the keeps-on-ticking dept.

Sunday Scientist writes "Minnesota researchers have created a beating heart in the laboratory. In a process called whole organ decellularization, they grew functioning heart tissue by using dead rat and pig hearts as a sort of flesh matrix, and reseeding them with a mixture of live cells. The goal is to grow replacement parts, using their own stem cells, for people born with defective tickers or experiencing heart failure."

3 of 258 comments (clear)

  1. Unthinkable just 25 years ago by CRCulver · · Score: 4, Interesting

    With the advances in biotechnology, it's amusing to think that Larry Niven in his Gil "The Arm" Hamilton stories (collected in Flatlander ) foresaw a future where you'd get the death penalty for just about anything just so that the state could rip out your organs for donation into someone needing it. In Niven's future history, the use of organ transplants ends only hundreds of years in the future when alloplasty ("gadgets instead of organs") is developed. Now, in just 2007, we're getting close to synthesizing real organs instead of transplanting or making little machines.

  2. Interesting engineering opportunities by G4from128k · · Score: 5, Interesting

    This presents a long-term opportunity for the next phase in body modification. Who says that a "replacement" organ must be identical to the original equipment? Perhaps athletes will opt for an enlarged six-chambered heart or an abdominal booster-heart to improve endurance.

    --
    Two wrongs don't make a right, but three lefts do.
    1. Re:Interesting engineering opportunities by bwalling · · Score: 4, Interesting

      This is how we're going to evolve, from here on out.
      I seriously hope that I die before that comes to pass. Given the greed in this world, modding humans will only lead to a greater disparity between "have" and "have not." I'd like to hope for better, but it seems like that would just be foolish.