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Med Science Loves Lab Rats

MedHeadlines - Man-made human organs that really work. The concept is alive and well in science fiction novels but still only a dream in the very real world of medical science. Researchers at the University of Minnesota, however, have come one giant step closer to fulfilling that elusive but collective dream of medical science. In an announcement made on Sunday, the research team described how they used live heart cells to create a new, beating rat heart where a dead heart had been.

Dr. Doris A. Taylor, lead researcher for the team, attributes simplicity to the amazing breakthrough - “give nature the tools, and get out of the way.”

In the stunning experiment, the team washed away all the cells from a dead rat heart, leaving behind only its structural tissue, which became the scaffold around which the new heart was grown. Once cleaned of dead cells, live heart cells from a newborn rat were injected into the scaffold tissue and an artificial circulatory system was devised to simulate a pulse.

Once the living heart cells reached maturity, the new heart was transplanted into the abdominal area of a live rat. The host rat was unrelated to the newborn from which the original live cells were taken in an effort to test for tissue compatibility, a major concern for organ donations today.

No immediate tissue rejection developed and, in time, a blood supply formed, the heart started beating, and the host rat’s own cells began to grow along the dead heart’s blood vessels and in the heart’s walls.

Researchers were able to replicate the experiment with remarkable success, which leads the research team to consider future studies to see if a rebuilt heart can successfully keep the donor animal alive.

Also in the discussion stage are similar experiments using pig hearts because their hearts most closely resemble human hearts.

Rebuilding functional human hearts is at least ten years away, according to the research team, but if it could be successfully achieved, the possibility of rebuilding other organs in similar fashion is also under consideration.

The current research, declared a “landmark achievement” by experts, could lead to the availability of many more organs for transplants, saving thousands of lives every year and potentially removing the risk of tissue rejection, a common but life-threatening side effect of transplanting donated organs.

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