Sunday, May 6, 2012

Lab-Raised Heart-Tess Fairchild

In this video, scientists in a tissue engineering lab use cardiomyocytes from baby rats and human embryonic stem cells to make heart tissue. They put these cells in an environment like the body; the cells were put on a 3D scaffold, temperature, carbon dioxide content, salinity, and pH were monitered, nutrients were added, and they sent electrical signals through the tissue. The electrical signaling would make the developing heart tissue react to environmental signals in a body so that the tissue could be used as a bandaid on someone's heart.
This relates to the current unit because the heart is part of the circulatory system. We learned about the electrical signals and pacemaker in the heart that causes it to beat.
URL: http://www.sciencefriday.com/videos/watch/10385

3 comments:

  1. What is the purpose of this research? Why are these scientists trying to create tissue?

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  2. Do you think that this will be used often in the future to help repair hearts? How soon do you think it will be until this method will be used in the medical field?

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  3. The purpose of this research is to be able to create tissue to use on damaged human hearts. Scientists are trying to create tissue to repair hearts because after a heart is damaged there is no way to regenerate the damaged tissue. The only treatments that currently exist prevent more damage or try to help the damage.
    I think it will be used often in the future to help repair hearts because the tissue would work well with the heart it is put on. For example, the electrical signals that are sent through the tissue prepare it to beat, and since it is from the body's stem cells, it will not be rejected. Also, heart tissue developed from stem cells was put into rat hearts and did not cause heart failure. It may be a long time until this method is used because these are just experimental steps. Scientists have not yet tried this in humans and must try it on animals before they can use it on patients.
    Research: http://abcnews.go.com/Health/research-transforms-skin-stem-cells-healthy-heart-tissue/story?id=16405599

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