Source: Associated Press
Date: January 13, 2008
Summary:
Researchers seeking new treatments for heart disease managed to grow a rat heart in the lab and start it beating. They took the hearts from eight newborn rats and removed all the cells. Left behind was a gelatin-like matrix shaped like a heart and containing conduits where the blood vessels had been. Scientists then injected cells back into this scaffold — muscle cells and endothelial cells, which line blood vessels.
Dr. Doris Taylor, director of the Center for Cardiovascular Repair at the University of Minnesota, explains the result of the procedure:
"The muscle cells covered the matrix walls and lined up together, while the endothelial cells found their way inside to coat the blood vessels," she said.
