Salamanders can do it, zebrafish can do it, why can’t we? Yes, back to the topic of tissue regeneration - it seems that, for zebrafish at least, the solution lies in their microRNA (something I’m not exactly au fait with,but that shouldn’t come as a surprise to anyone!). Still, it’s another step towards limb and organ regeneration in humans…
Wednesday, March 19th, 2008
According to the London Times, scientists at the University of Minnesota have chemically stripped cells from a dead animal’s heart. This leaves only the inert protein base structure intact. This can then be used as the base for seeding with fresh, live cells from the patient. At the moment, it’s only been used on animals. However, in the future, we’ll be able to use hearts from cadavers, seed them with stem cells, and pretty rapidly - within weeks - have a functioning heart ready for transplant. It isn’t just hearts, either - almost any organ can be ‘created’ using this procedure.
Of course, the process still needs a real, human heart to provide the base. I suppose that it needn’t be as ‘fresh’ as the hearts currently used for transplant, so by providing a bigger time window between the death of the donor and the time the organ is removed from the cadaver. Also, all issues regarding compatibility and organ rejection become irrelevant.
The scientists who have developed the procedure say that it will be many years before this is ready for use on humans, but I’m not so sure - I think there’s such a huge demand amongst the boomer generation for it that money will be thrown at the problem, and the delivery date will arrive much sooner!
Sunday, January 13th, 2008
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