A British research team led by the world’s leading heart surgeon has grown part of a human heart from stem cells for the first time. If animal trials scheduled for later this year prove successful, replacement tissue could be used in transplants for the hundreds of thousands of people suffering from heart disease within three years.
If that trial works well, Prof Yacoub is optimistic that the replacement heart tissue, which can be grown into the shape of a human heart valve using specially-designed collagen scaffolds, could be used in patients within three to five years.
Growing a suitably-sized piece of tissue from a patient’s own stem cells would take around a month but he said that most people would not need such individualised treatment. A store of ready-grown tissue made from a wide variety of stem cells could provide good matches for the majority of the population.
Being able to tweak replacement bits and pieces with your own stem cells will help eliminate the barrier of tissue rejection. The same scientists guess they might be able to grow a complete human heart in another 10 years. Keep it up, folks. Replacement parts for human beings is a possibility that only scares the ignorant and timorous.
I didn’t read anywhere in the article whether they used adult stem cells or embryo stem cells. Its an important distinction: I didn’t keep any of my stem cells from my umbilical cord. So if they wont be able to grow me a new heart (or anyone else) if they need those.
The religious nuts against stem cell research are referring to those taken from embryos. I don’t agree with them, but I don’t object to their protests.
Stem cell research (both adult and embryo) continues anyway. The US government ban is on funding the research. Private funding continues, and has always been greater than government funding anyway.
My only objection to government funding of stem cell research is that it is at the expense of funding other import research. Yes, stem cells might cure lots of things. But there are lots of other promising cures too. And since we’ve decided to spend all our money on blowing up Iraq we end up with a limited supply of funding for other projects.
(BTW, can I say I just love the new built-in spell checker in Firefox 2 !)
Chuck said it well. Federal Funding in the US for this research is the only thing thats been hindered. While funny (Christians are generally funny in my book) the little cartoon is out of place with this article and seems to me a sad attempt to jab at the ‘religious right’ yet again.
#2, This is less a jab at the “Religious Right” and more at those who use their pulpits to preach something their congregation doesn’t believe in. This also more widely known as “hypocrisy”.A good example is the Catholic Church’s ban on birth control when most of their adherents already use it. In this case, in America, it is the “Religious Right” who are most stridently opposed to using stem cells in research.
And I wish Professor Yacoub all the best in his research.
Following congestive heart failure two years ago I have been watching the status of stem cell research, religion and politics in the US and Asia very closely. Having spent a couple of years in south east Asia in the early seventies and since traveled there often for business, I have come to look at countries and researchers outside of the US for all significant advances in this arena. My greatest fear is the later in life when actual heart stem cell therapy may have the greatest impact on my health I will be too ill to travel to a foreign land for the care I may need.
Religion, politics and medical care should not be mixed. Black market transplants, for heart and other organs will grow quickly in the US when the politicians and the religious fanatics take control of medicine and medical research in the US.
Just wait for the outrage when I mortgage my home to pay for a transplanted heart take from a child in China or India! By then it will be just another living expense if the US does not find a real alternative, like stem cell therapy.
#3 – Well… preaching it would be hypocrisy if the preacher doesn’t believe or practice it himself. For that degree of hypocrisy, you have to go to Pat Robertson or the many media preachers in closets of one sort or another. But you’re right – ignoring the facts of how their congregations feel, like Catholic Bishops ignoring birth control as practiced in their own areas, does make the religious institution itself hypocritical. As many posters here at DU like to point out, ignoring or actively denying facts is an essential component of the religious outlook, so it isn’t likely to stop anytime soon.
#2 – The cartoon isn’t so much a jab as a pointed observation. I love the way cartoonists boil an issue down to some essential absurdity. And that would be true of right- as well as left-leaning cartoonists.
#2 – who else but the Religious Right is trying to stop stem cell research? Unaffiliated morons?
I don’t see the bitch about stem cells. We are already playing god creating unnatural life through In vitro fertilization, why not crank out a spare to be used for parts. Better yet, why not grow a new part for me instead of pitching the viable material that could be used as they do today.
How many years after Galileo died did the superstition leaders accept his proofs. Maybe the grandkids can benefit… eh?
More to the point about stem cells:
1) Most fertilized eggs (about 80%) never even implant in the womb, so, if one believes in god, which I obviously don’t, god is the biggest abortionist ever.
2) Inlcuded in the sources for stem cells are the fertlized eggs for in vitro fertilization that end up not getting used. These are routinely thrown away anyway, why not use them to help people?
3) Did we mention that this was to save lives??!!? These people that refuse to allow stem cells (not yet born and with no brain) to be used to save people that have been born, have brains, and feel real suffering, must believe that life begins at conception and ends at birth!
The religious right’s opinon on stem cell research is irrelevant beyond the point that the government shouldnt force money out of their pockets to fund something they believe might assist the death of a living being. Not all stem cells come from fetus sources, we all know this. Whats the outcry over giving them the benifit of the doubt and not spending funderal money on this *one* area of controversy? The hypocracy I see, lies with the liberals vociferous demonizing the conservative right when the right’s goal is to protect something they *believe* should be protected on moral grounds. Liberals are all about protecting and saving everything under the Sun if its their idea, when it comes to something a conservative right winger wants to perserve and protect they could care less.
Anyway, we stray from the issue once more. The news article is cool, best of luck to the researchers. Personally I wish they would research going bald more aggressively 🙂
I have a friend who lost his uhhhh- you know – uhh -“family jewels” to cancer. (Not a joke). I wonder if these too can be regrown.
“By using chemical and physical nudges, the scientists first coaxed stem cells extracted from bone marrow to grow into heart valve cells.”
Hey, but don’t let facts actually get in the way of a little Christian bashing.
12,
Steve,
While there may be Christian bashers among those supporting embryonic stem-cell research, not all of us are.
Any criticism of destroyed embryos must also take into consideration the wastage of embryos in fertility services. Condemn the one and you condemn them both. I know several Christian couples who went though in-vitro (my sister among them) yet condemn research, not recognizing the hypocrisy. To point out that someone is a hypocrite is not bashing if it is the truth.