select search filters
briefings
roundups & rapid reactions
Fiona fox's blog
Results published in Nature Medicine show scientists can regain some function from a dead heart by stripping cells from it and replacing with neonatal heart cells.
Dr Tim Chico, Clinician Scientist and honorary Consultant Cardiologist, University of Sheffield, said:
“This is an ingenious step towards solving a massive problem. Heart failure (an inability of the heart to pump sufficient blood, usually after a heart attack) is increasing in the UK. A chronic shortage of donors for heart transplantation makes stem cell therapy appealing. The study is very preliminary, but it does show that stem cells can regrow in the “skeleton” of a donor heart. However, it will take a lot of further work to assess whether this will ever be a viable option for patients.”
Dr Jon Frampton Wellcome Trust Senior Fellow, University of Birmingham, said:
“One of the most significant challenges to the use of stem cell-derived cells in regenerative medicine is to find a way to recreate the structure of the damaged organ and the complex interactions between several different types of cell. In this very exciting study, Ott and colleagues have shown that the three dimensional non-cellular matrix of a heart can be used as a scaffold upon which heart cells, such as those that constitute the contractile muscle and the vessel linings, can be assembled in a form that mimics aspects of normal heart function.
“Although this is only a first step requiring considerable follow-up development, the study nevertheless represents an exciting breakthrough that will eventually make the prospect of repairing damaged hearts a reality and will also be an approach that can be extended to other organs.”