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Bioreactors Engineer Tissue To Mend Heart Damage
Hugh Pickens writes "Heart attacks usually cause irreversible damage to heart muscle and, because cells lost from the heart do not grow back naturally, leave the organ in a weakened and vulnerable state that may cause another serious condition — called heart failure — if the victim survives. Now a team of scientists led by Tal Dvir from Ben-Gurion University of the Negev in Beer-Sheva has developed a tissue-engineering technique, using the body as a 'bioreactor,' to create a 'patch' made from heart muscle that can be used to fix scarring left over from a heart attack. First, a biodegradable 'scaffold' is seeded with immature cells taken from the hearts of newborn rats. For 48 hours, the scaffold is exposed to a cocktail of growth-promoting chemicals in the laboratory and is then transplanted into a rat's abdomen where it develops a network of blood vessels and muscle fibers. After seven days the patch is removed and grafted onto the animal's heart. A month later the patch has completely integrated itself into the heart, synchronizing its 'beat' with that of the surrounding tissue. 'Using the body as a bioreactor to engineer cardiac tissue with stable and functional blood vessel networks represents a significant improvement in cardiac patch performance over ex vivo (outside the body) methods currently used for patch production,' write the authors. The technique is also being developed for livers and bladders."
Motown will never be the same now that we can answer back to the song "What Becomes of the Broken Hearted?"
I scream. You scream. I assume that means we're both acquainted with the problem. We proceed.
Unfortunately, this technique seems inadequate to patch my empty heart. No matter how many times I try.
Try using enough small children as cell donors.
Rampant carbon sequestration destroyed the Dinosaurs' tropical paradise. I'm here to help repair the damage.
Wow, about as insightful as the deathpanel nonsense.
First off...what? Research isn't driven by insurance companies, so I'm having a hard time understanding how that would remove incentives of any type. With nationalized healthcare are people going to still have heart attacks? Yes. Are people going to pay a lot of money for this to recover from a heart attack? Yes. Are people going to fund research like this? Obviously. I'm not seeing anything to suggest that our health insurance industry is responsible for any innovation besides the new ways of denying coverage they find. I realize I'm not an expert in the insurance field, so I'm willing to listen to your evidence as to how researchers in Israel (which APPEARS TO HAVE NATIONALIZED HEALTHCARE) are funded by our healthcare system.
You seem to be suffering from the notion that the only reason researchers, doctors, and scientists come up with stuff is to make a boatload of money. That's absurd. That is a motivating factor for some researchers. Definitely not all, and definitely not most. Maybe that's why most medical doctors get into the biz, but as a scientist currently earning less than I would on unemployment... no. Just no. Even if it weren't for the money, there'd still be the accolades (beyond /. of course), the respect, the research grants, the good feeling that comes from coming up with something that saves lives, and the satisfaction that comes from discovery, to drive them on.
Hell, I'm a grad student, so I am proof the accolades, money, respect, grants, and good feelings of any type are even dispensable: some of us do it because we're masochists.