Scientists Find Heart Stem Cells - Breakthrough, page 1

Scientists have identified a cardiac stem cell that gives rise to all of the major cell types in the human heart. The find opens the way to using patients' own cells to heal their damaged hearts.

The cells in question express a protein, called Islet 1, which is present in the early stages of fetal heart formation. In recent years, scientists have identified the cells in embryonic mouse hearts. And now, a team in the laboratory of Kenneth Chien, director of the Cardiovascular Research Center at Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston, has found the same cell type in human fetal hearts.

Ultimately, researchers may be able to use the cells to grow human "heart parts" such as strips of heart muscle or a valve on scaffolds that could be inserted into patients, Chien says.

sciencenow.sciencemag.org...

This breakthrough could be what heart patients and doctors alike have been hoping for. This will allow scientist grow parts and help take time of the waiting list for patients in need of heart surgery.

reply to post by slipkid

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This is completely wrong. Haven't you heard of bone marrow transplants? Hematopoietic stem cells are the whole reason you need them; they migrate to the bone marrow and allow the recipient to regenerate blood cells he ordinarily couldn't due to diseased marrow.


You really don't know what the hell you're talking about, sorry. This stuff is very promising indeed.

This is already being done here.

Wake Forest

Still good info. They need to increase the research in this area.

reply to post by slipkid

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I don't think you've done any research, otherwise you'd know that what you propose would preclude organ transplantation - which occurs across family lines. We are not singular organisms, nor are our organs singular chunks of tissues. We're swarms of billions of microscopic organisms (most of which don't even carry human DNA) that communicate with each other via chemical signals and receptor proteins. It's when new organisms or collections of organisms in significant numbers are introduced to the body that don't have complimentary protein receptors which leads to an immune response and tissue rejection. In some cases can compensate by either suppressing the immune response or by training it to accept the chemical signals from the new organ - even if that organ comes from a different species altogether!

The most common form of xenotransplantation comes from pigs (especially heart valves), as their morphology is rather similar to ours and doesn't carry the moral stigma that using closer primate relatives does - since pigs are seen as a butcher animal anyhow. It's even been demonstrated in divisions as large as fish to primate with pancreatic tissues. However, Xenotransplatation isn't widespread and when used, generally it's used for temporary solutions. One of the major risk factors involved is susceptibility to retroviruses and other pathogens which affect the donor tissue that we may pick up and carry, or already present in the transplant organ, but that don't as of yet have the ability to affect human responses. It also acutely increases the risk of pathogens adapting to be transmittable to humans, and then transmittable from human to human.

So... your worry about stem cells is moot, and far from impossible. Even if it were, you don't necessarily need embryonic stem cells, as we can return human skin cells to a stem cell state. As well as other cells. The process isn't perfected and it's an obtuse step - especially when stem cells are needed in larger numbers. This isn't only demonstrably evident, but it's in practice since the Bush Administration. The Pentagon is helping to fund private organizations to regrow ears, noses, skin, etc, for disfigured war veterans and victims of IEDs.

Also... some may find this interesting. I thought we already identified the Heart Stem cell, as experiments such as shown below have been ongoing for a few years now... even if not in America or with Embryonic Stem Cells. Basically, if you're heart is damaged, they can hook you up to an artificial heart or a temporary donor heart while they completely strip your own heart of cells - down to the cartilaginous tissue, spray it with stem cells, and regrow your heart anew.



... and it won't take a "long long time" for it to be used in humans. Donor stem cell regeneration is already in clinical trials (i.e., it's been done on a few people who are under observation) for bladders, trachea, teeth, etc. The first successful heart transplants were done in the late 1960's, and became common practice over the next decade. Though it has been stymied by the fact that heart transplants can only come from a donor after they have died - and only if it's in good condition. Major pushes in the 80's and 90's to push organ donation helped, but weren't providing the organs in the quantities needed. Transplant recipients often died while on a waiting list. This is only one facet of why stem cell research is so important, and why ignorantly claiming that it's science fiction - or writing off a current stumbling block as "impossible", when clearly the evidence indicates otherwise is highly immoral IMO.

[edit on 4-7-2009 by Lasheic]

reply to post by Amaterasu

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We'll see, won't we. (Unless they suppress it... All it takes is not hitting the tipping point in awareness, and it, like the fact that teeth can be stimulated to regrow - as long as a root is still there - electrically, will fall into obscurity.)

You can't suppress it. The one thing humanity has never been able to do with our ambition and our imagination, is to suppress progress. Even while Europe was languishing in the Dark Ages, it was still making other forms of progress - and the Islamic Golden Age carried on after the Hellenistic Era. When Bush put a moratorium on embryonic stem cells, Europe and Asia continued on with the research.

Ever since cloning was demonstrated and popularized, people have feared human cloning - and almost all industrialized countries have banned it. Yet, even though the cloning of humans is banned - the research carries on. We didn't need to clone an entirely new person... because we already know that we can. We understand how to do it... and we know that human clones already walk among us, what we consider identical twins. Why invite moral and ethical condemnation for an experiment nature already provides, and there is no moral or ethical ban on the study of identical twins.

Human cloning of already living individuals is fully underway - but in part, rather than in whole. This is what Stem Cell research is. The cloning of new organs and tissues, parts of you, to replace the old and dysfunctional parts.



The reason why the old sci-fi scare of a mad scientist or rouge government building a clone army hasn't occurred yet isn't because we have artificially halted progress... it's because it's impossible logistically and economically. A clone of someone is just a copy of their body, not their minds and individually which develop with the brain both placentally and as the child grows through puberty... and beyond. The winner in the argument between nature vs. nurture is... both. You do have certain predispositions and inherent programming that you're born with - but it's only a rough draft. A precursor. It is changed and modified by environment and experiment both in the womb and throughout the rest of your life. This is why you can find identical twins separated at birth who share a lot of personality traits, but are divided on morals, opinions, religions, and political affiliations. Despite being part of the same egg at one time, they are still two very different people.

Why would any nation or organization spend the billions needed to clone an army, raise them, educate them, feed them, cloth them, etc... and yet still end up with the individuality and free thought you find in general population at large?

It's really not even an ethical question anymore, IMO. Nobody would stop to ask, "Should I?" in this regard, but rather "what's the point?".

Originally posted by Scooby Doo

Scientists have identified a cardiac stem cell that gives rise to all of the major cell types in the human heart. The find opens the way to using patients' own cells to heal their damaged hearts.

The cells in question express a protein, called Islet 1, which is present in the early stages of fetal heart formation. In recent years, scientists have identified the cells in embryonic mouse hearts. And now, a team in the laboratory of Kenneth Chien, director of the Cardiovascular Research Center at Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston, has found the same cell type in human fetal hearts.

Ultimately, researchers may be able to use the cells to grow human "heart parts" such as strips of heart muscle or a valve on scaffolds that could be inserted into patients, Chien says.

sciencenow.sciencemag.org...

This breakthrough could be what heart patients and doctors alike have been hoping for. This will allow scientist grow parts and help take time of the waiting list for patients in need of heart surgery.

I am going to use this technology to grow a second heart, permitting me to run faster and longer, like some kind of futuristic superman. After installed, I will use it as an excuse to berate normal people or old-fashioned athletes with only a single heart. A second heart and other redundant organs will be luxury reserved for the ultra wealthy. Muhahahhaha

[edit on 4-7-2009 by andrewh7]

reply to post by slipkid

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Stem cell research represents an area of medicine that can, potentially, make life much more enjoyable and longer lasting for millions of people. The only people who think it is bad are scripture-mongering religious fanatics, who don't understand it at all. Are you one of those people? Cutting funding was a terrible thing and now we are 5 or 6 years behind where we should be.

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