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Virus Rebuilds Heart's Own Pacemaker In Animal Tests

Posted by timothy on Sunday December 16, 2012 @09:37PM from the old-ways-is-best-ways dept.

hugheseyau writes "A new pacemaker has been built inside a heart by converting beating muscle into cells which can organise the organ's rhythm, U.S. researchers report. Scientists injected a genetically-modified virus into guinea pigs to turn part of their heart into a new, working pacemaker."

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First Steps by ThunderBird89 · 2012-12-16 22:12 · Score: 3, Informative

First step along the road to creating the Solanum virus?

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Hyperbole: I use it liberally!
Re:Scared by Hentes · 2012-12-16 23:22 · Score: 4, Informative

This doesn't look much different from how the heart regulates itself naturally. It's definitely more natural than a machine pacemaker, and also has less chance to fail. The only problem is that it's much harder to control, unless they find a way to hook it up to the nervous system your heartbeat will be pretty much constant.