Scientists growing live human heart through stem cell treatments

Science is full of miracles and it can never be predicted what new miracle it will bring in the next hour. One would be reading about a particular breakthrough and thinking hard whether it is possible and they would show up a new one. It is only due to expertise of researchers that has led to the end of several diseases that were considered fatal. Researchers these days are busy in growing live human hearts with adult stem cells in their labs. The scientists of the Minnesota University, America which have made this possible are hoping that these artificial hearts will start beating within few weeks. This stem cell research has given new hope to millions and billions of patients suffering from heart problems.

It is a huge step towards ‘grow-your-own’ heart. Their approach involves extraction of muscle cells from the donor organs leaving heart of connective tissue behind. The stem cells are then injected which multiply to form a structure. This converts into healthy heart cells. As per Dr. Doris Taylor, an expert of Minnesota University, there is so many obstructions that have to be dealt with while creating a new fully functional heart. Taylor further says that she is confident that one day it might be possible to grow a whole organ for transplantation through stem cell transplant. The patient who undergoes regular heart transplantation should take drugs to repress the immune system for the remaining life. It might increase the chances of kidney failure, diabetes and hypertension.

The organs grown in lab earlier are being generated using cells – immature ‘master cells’ of the body. They are those cells that are capable to turn into different tissue types. During the year of 2007, researchers got success by creating a human heart valve with stem cells extracted from bone marrow. Taylor and team have already successfully generated pig and rat hearts. However, these organs could not be transplanted into animals as they were not much strong. Later, the team used human hearts taken from the body of dead people. Cells were extracted from these dead hearts with a strong detergent leaving a collagen skeleton behind. The skeleton was termed as a ghost heart because of its scary appearance. The ghost heart was infused with stem cells of the patients followed by stem cells treatments with several chemicals.

The stem cells identified the organ structure and started multiplying forming muscles cells of heart. There are many hurdles that come in way during generation of a fully functional heart. Major is providing sufficient amount of oxygen through a complicated blood vessels network. Further researchers also have to make this sure that heart cells will beat in a normal way. The scientists are very happy with the research. They believe that no doubt it will take some time to make this fully functional but along with that it has also increased the chances of growing new organs for the transplantation of human being. Moreover, due to stem cells coming from own body of patients it further reduces the chances of rejection by the patient’s body. The study would definitely end the problem of cardiac patients resulting in reduction of death rate of the people dying from several heart problems.