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Berkeley Builds a Heart Simulator

Posted by samzenpus on from the beat-goes-on dept.

Zothecula writes The increasing number of biological structures being grown on chips in various laboratories around the world is rapidly replicating the entire gamut of major human organs. Now one of the most important of all – a viable functioning heart – has been added to that list by researchers at the University of California at Berkeley who have taken adult stem cells and grown a lattice of pulsing human heart tissue on a silicon device.

23 comments

  1. Skynet has a heart? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Who would have thought it!

    1. Re:Skynet has a heart? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      The first models were a heart on a chip, basically a bunch of cells that contracted and expanded. We spotted them easily, but these are new. The heart looks human, beats irregularly, has heart attacks, the whole story. We have to wait till they get sick before we can zero them.

    2. Re: Skynet has a heart? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Or Cheney needs a new one again.

  2. Not really a simulator... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    if it *is* the thing it is "simulating".

  3. I still prefer a fleshlight by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    more useful

  4. Nothing new by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    This work has none of the key features of a heart that would make the platform attractive for drug testing. Cardiomyocytes will spontaneously contract if grown on basically anything. The true value of on a chip platforms is in implementations that can recapitulate higher order function or structure like the Bhatia lab's livers or the Allbritton lab's colons.

    1. Re:Nothing new by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Is this bullshit or should I mod you up?

    2. Re:Nothing new by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      This is bullshit you should mod up.

  5. Abuse & Replace by Nyder · · Score: 1

    I'm guessing we'll be having a future of where people will abuse their various body parts via drugs & alcohol and then just buy a new one. The new "plastic surgery".

    Personally I'm waiting for the full human clones and the mind transplants.

    --
    Be seeing you...
    1. Re:Abuse & Replace by Whiteox · · Score: 1

      I agree with the mind transplants, but I wouldn't want a clone of myself as such.

      Regards
      No 2

      --
      Don't be apathetic. Procrastinate!
    2. Re:Abuse & Replace by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      See, I never understood that part. A full human clone would presumably include a working brain and hence a mind/personhood/whatever-you-want-to-call-it. To "transplant" your mind into such a clone you would effectively be killing the mind/person you made for the purpose, which is presumably illegal in the same way that it's illegal to harvest organs from your identical twin even though genetically he's just your clone (and you are his).

      I don't know... maybe it makes sense to mind/body dualists.

  6. Yes, but... by fph+il+quozientatore · · Score: 3, Funny

    Yes, but is it 3D printed?

    --
    My first program:

    Hell Segmentation fault

    1. Re:Yes, but... by boristdog · · Score: 1

      And will it run Linux?

  7. Blah by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Scarcity fails it

  8. Nice! A new simulator by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Is this anything like Goat Simulator?

  9. Nothing beats... by nerdyalien · · Score: 0

    The Goat Simulator

  10. Meh! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Not interested until they can make a better one than I currently have, I have one that is big and black and made of stone.. And all the women love it.. Oh wait we were talking about hearts.. Well .. Not interested because the one I have is big and black and made of stone and all the women love it.

  11. Denshi no kokoro, furueru no... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    > pulsing human heart tissue on a silicon device

    Start worrying when they build a body around it, complete with cat ears and maid outfit.

    1. Re:Denshi no kokoro, furueru no... by michelcolman · · Score: 1

      What do you mean, worry? Do they have a kickstarter page yet?

  12. so when will by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    they grow a brain on a chip? It's be nice if my computer could think for itself once it has a "heart". Ya know, a PC PC.

  13. Kiddie steps by JimSadler · · Score: 1

    OK, so stop messing about and 3d print an entire functioning human being. The idea of clones needs to be updated. We will also need a technology that can print me in a more youthful version as I'm getting a bit too old these days.

    1. Re:Kiddie steps by wiggles · · Score: 1

      Combine that with this guy's work and you'll have something.

  14. Great but not the entire picture. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    This progress is fantastic and very useful but we should never forget that our organs do not operate in chemical and neurological isolation and that they are parts of complex systems where their interactions are as important as their internal states therefore organs on chips have there limits when it comes to using them as proxies for actual organs. However I do expect the technology will help to accelerate clinical trials up top the point of testing in humans, and that is a good thing, even if we still get some unpleasant surprises when solutions that looked promising at the lab/organ-on-a-chip level turn out to have a nasty gotcha that causes them to be unusable in vivo.