Researchers 3D-Print Heart From Human Patient's Cells 74
Researchers have 3D-printed a heart using a patient's cells, providing hope that the technique could be used to heal hearts or engineer new ones for transplants. "This is the first time anyone anywhere has successfully engineered and printed an entire heart replete with cells, blood vessels, ventricles and chambers," Professor Tal Dvir of Tel Aviv University's School of Molecular Cell Biology and Biotechnology said in a statement. Dvir is senior author of the research, published Monday in the journal Advanced Science. CNN reports: The process of printing the heart involved a biopsy of the fatty tissue that surrounds abdominal organs. Researchers separated the cells in the tissue from the rest of the contents, namely the extracellular matrix linking the cells. The cells were reprogrammed to become stem cells with the ability to differentiate into heart cells; the matrix was processed into a personalized hydrogel that served as the printing "ink."
The cells and hydrogel were first used to create heart patches with blood vessels and, from there, an entire heart. Next, the researchers plan to train the hearts to behave like hearts, Dvir explained. "The cells need to form a pumping ability; they can currently contract, but we need them to work together." If researchers are successful, they plan to transplant the 3D-printed heart in animal models and, after that, humans.
The cells and hydrogel were first used to create heart patches with blood vessels and, from there, an entire heart. Next, the researchers plan to train the hearts to behave like hearts, Dvir explained. "The cells need to form a pumping ability; they can currently contract, but we need them to work together." If researchers are successful, they plan to transplant the 3D-printed heart in animal models and, after that, humans.
Re: (Score:3)
Perfection is often a goal to disaster.
Good Enough is actually a better goal. Then with improvements later on.
Lets say this new 3d heard will work 75% as well as a healthy human heart transplant. So the patient may not be able to run sprints or marathons, but it is better then their own heart that is working at 25% of normal.
Animal Testing then human trials are part of the course. I am not sure what you are expecting a 100% effective human heart to be implanted perfectly without any testing?
Now I need a maker space (Score:2)
to make my pace makers
Re: (Score:2)
The point is, it has nothing to do with this story. Further, you're clearly reading stories, and doing your best to try to find a way, any way, to link it to politics.
You know that 50 years ago, people thought about the president of a country, the prime minister, monthly maybe? Stop watching 24 hour news channels, of any type. Stop reading political stories hourly. Maybe read them weekly, or monthly.
Stop being a slave to the 24x7 news cycle, and their need for you to read the same story over, and over, and over.
If you want to be an uninformed rube that is your choice. I, however, welcome any technology that allows us to retroactively upgrade our leaders to be less of a bunch of greedy selfish ass-holes than they currently are.
Re: (Score:1)
Would it be the moral compass of the voters that need to be fixed?
The problem is we are trying to find a politician who will solve all our problems, so we keep on voting in bozos who try to solve all our problems, and often will fail miserably because our problems are diverse and will conflict with others problems.
We really need to solve most of our own problems, and for bigger ones, it should be up to the local governments, and giving national government the least amount of problems to solve. Because a nat
Re: (Score:1)
Re: (Score:2)
You think you're moral and anyone who doesn't agree with you is immoral. I think it's you that needs a new compass printed and perhaps a sense of circumspection too.
No, I think that being elected into office rots your soul and the first thing to rot away is your moral compass. I don't care whether your name is Mitch McConnell or Nancy Pelosi. I watched the both of them give interviews recently and I knew the two of them were rotten, but I had somewhat underestimated just how rotten they have become and while I was not surprised at just how completely the two of them have sold out their ideals I was somewhat surprised that the two of them seem to genuine believe that th
Re: Interesting... (Score:1)
âoewhy do you have to turn everything into political mess.â
Because there are mentally ill people out there who obsess over things like this.
Re: (Score:2)
If Right means limited, small-government and the left means state control of economy and subjects (think monarchy, fascism, socialism) then the Nazi's are on the left.
If the Nazi's are on the Right. And the Socialists are on the Left. Then where do monarchists go? Where do Libertarians go?
The problem is in the ill-defined Left-Right scale.
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
Only the ones I disagree with.
And here I thought you conservatives valued the 1st amendment? ... apparently it only applies to people you agree with.
Re: (Score:1)
Try again. Not even in the neighborhood of acceptable thought.
What? Retrofitting sociopath politicians with a moral compass is unacceptable thought? Why? Being a a greedy and corrupt sociopath incapable of empathy (Bibi) is due to an malfunction in the circuitry of the human brain as is narcissism and dementia (Trump). If we can 3D print a heart, surely we can 3D print replacement neural circuitry and retroactively install a moral compass in these people using the 10 commandments as a basis for the design. I may be an atheist but the 10 commandments are pretty sensibl
Re: (Score:1)
Re: (Score:1)
Excellent! (Score:1, Offtopic)
Now that we've helped Tin Man, maybe there is hope for President Scarecrow. ;)
An interesting first step. (Score:5, Informative)
After I wrote that sentence, I thought, how the hell does a heart transplant work since all the nerves had been cut. Apparently, the nerves degenerate immediately and the heart just runs on autopilot. They can't feel angina or other heart problems.
Just about 70% will eventually see new nerve growth however over a long period of time.
So yeah, they have to learn to print nerves unless they intend this to be bio-mechanical in some way.
The article I read after writing the initial sentence, it's a bit out of most of our fields, but is still fairly easy to interpret. I found it a fascinating read on a subject I have only passing familiarity with. (Once trained as a Medical Assistant. Then Hillary Clinton, the day Bill was elected said "health care reform." No one knew what it would entail, and the jobs dried up for about two years and I became a mechanic instead. My tale of woe for your entertainment)
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5210323/
Re: (Score:3)
Re: (Score:2)
without paywall (Score:2)
Another failure for BDS (Score:1)
I sincerely hope that all those that advocate for the antisemitic BDS movement never get to benefit from these, and other potentially life saving breakthroughs that have originated in Israel.
EDITORS: the link to the journal article is broken (Score:2)
I am pretty sure the editors just copy/pasted the broken link from the CNN article. Obviously, that's a wrongheaded way of doing... editing.