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Virus Rebuilds Heart's Own Pacemaker In Animal Tests

Posted by timothy on 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."

10 of 45 comments (clear)

  1. how if someone with this virus dying? by septianw · · Score: 2

    How if someone with this virus dying but his/her heart still work. is he/she still feel the pain? it must be bad for him/her

    1. Re:how if someone with this virus dying? by ArsenneLupin · · Score: 5, Funny

      No, he will just turn into a zombie. And, as everybody knows, zombies feel no pain.

    2. Re:how if someone with this virus dying? by wed128 · · Score: 2

      since i don't respect zombies.

      Or grammar.

  2. First Steps by ThunderBird89 · · Score: 3, Informative

    First step along the road to creating the Solanum virus?

    --
    Hyperbole: I use it liberally!
  3. Scared by Extremus · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Am I wrong to be a bit scared about this kind of research?

    1. Re:Scared by septianw · · Score: 2

      no you are not. we must aware of this kind of research.

    2. Re:Scared by Hentes · · 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.

    3. Re:Scared by Zorpheus · · Score: 2

      Maybe it is more like the Atrioventricular node than like the Sinoatrial node. This node is acting as a reserve. This triggers a contraction of the muscles at a lower frequency, only if there was no contraction triggered by the Sinoatrial node.

  4. Re:I for one by ColdWetDog · · Score: 2

    Just wait until this information hits the Internet. It'll go viral for sure.

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    Faster! Faster! Faster would be better!
  5. Interesting by Taibhsear · · Score: 2

    Interesting science but couldn't you do basically the same thing but with stem cells and thus avert the possible viral contagion/FUD/ethics issues?