Adult Stem Cells Grow Heart Valves
If this works in animal testing, it could be a great breakthrough in the treatment of heart disease. Scientists have taken stem cells from bone marrow and, using a scaffold, engineered them into new heart valves. From the story in the Guardian:
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.As I always say: Most biotechnology is not controversial. This is a wonderful example. Let us hope that the reality meets the dream.
Labels: Adult Stem Cells
posted by Wesley J. Smith @ 8:20 PM
2 Comments
2 Comments:
This sounds familiar to the heart valve and amniotic fluid story from last November. It will be interesting to see if this gets US press.
I wonder if we'll ever get to the day when it does get reported and they don't say, "but experts say this (thousandth ASC application) doesn't mean we should stop embryonic stem cell research, because embryonic stem cells can become any other type of cell, which or course everyone who knows anything knows?"
I heard a brief news report on the radio this morning, one of those top-of-the-hour breaks, the newscaaster mentioned "stem cells" but did not mention they were adult in origin.
Did you ever notice how the media will play up "embryonic" cells when there is a breakthrough in that field (rarely happens, I know)It is as if they are attempting to conflate all stem cells into the same category in order to add weight to the political agenda of the pro-embryo/human-cloning crowd.
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