Heart Valves Grown From Stem Cells
By Justin Gardner | Related entries in ScienceBig breakthrough since heart valves involve many different types of cells.
Sir Magdi Yacoub, a professor of cardiac surgery at Imperial College London, has worked on ways to tackle the shortage of donated hearts for transplant for more than a decade. His team at the heart science centre at Harefield hospital have grown tissue that works in the same way as the valves in human hearts, a significant step towards the goal of growing whole replacement hearts from stem cells. [...]Growing replacement tissue from stem cells is one of the principal goals of biology. If a damaged part of the body can be replaced by tissue that is genetically matched to the patient, there is no chance of rejection. So far, scientists have grown tendons, cartilages and bladders, but none of these has the complexity of organs, which are three-dimensional structures of dozens of different types of cells. [...]
Prof Yacoub said his team’s latest work had brought the goal of growing a whole, beating human heart closer. “It is an ambitious project but not impossible. If you want me to guess I’d say 10 years. But experience has shown that the progress that is happening nowadays makes it possible to achieve milestones in a shorter time. I wouldn’t be surprised if it was some day sooner than we think.”
10 years away from a heart grown from stem cells? Perhaps if they had a little help from their American counterparts, they could reach that goal faster…
This entry was posted on Wednesday, April 4th, 2007 and is filed under Science. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
April 4th, 2007 at 9:17 am
Extreme disingenuity and bias on your part here Justin. You seem to be conflating this research with research using human cloning and ebryonic stem cells. From the rest of the article:
and:
April 4th, 2007 at 10:36 am
Sorry, that last blockquoted paragraph is from me.
April 4th, 2007 at 1:22 pm
Conservatives and pro-lifers do impede scientific progress in some areas, as do Democrats in others. I’m focusing on one aspect.
Specifically, Bush’s stance on embryonic stem cells impedes research into cases just like this. Embryonic stem cells are the most flexible of all these types of cells, so yes, I wonder if we could be farther down the road if we weren’t so dogmatic about this.
If you think that’s biased, so be it.
April 4th, 2007 at 2:01 pm
Actually the truly sad thing is that many patents in incredibly valuable and lucrative stem cell research will be undoubtedly monopolized by countries other than America due to Bush’s blind obstinacy and idiocy. We seriously need to impeach him and Cheney to stop the incredible amounts of damage he has caused and continues to cause to America and the world.