Stem Cells From Fat Create Beating Heart Cells 198
Amenacier writes "Melbourne scientists recently discovered that stem cells isolated from human fat could be made to turn into beating heart muscle cells when cultured with rat heart cells. This discovery may lead to the use of fat stem cells in repairing cardiac damage, or fixing such cardiac problems as holes in the heart. It is proposed that culturing the stem cells with rat heart cells allows them to differentiate into heart muscle through signals from the rat cells. In the future it may be possible to inject/transplant the stem cells into the damaged area and have them naturally differentiate into the type of cell required, with only the natural stimuli provided by surrounding cells, without any danger of rejection by the body. Quoting: 'The next step is to implant the human heart cells onto the damaged heart of a laboratory rat to see whether they repair the heart. Then they would be trialled in higher species such as sheep and pigs before human applications could be considered. Clinical application could be five years away ...'" The Age has a multimedia treatment (Flash) of the discovery.
Re:Rat hearted overlords? (Score:5, Interesting)
I ask that all rat lovers mod parent down for such an insult to rats everywhere.
Pretty much off-topic, so I've foregone my karmic bonus. Mods, please be gentle.
Rats rock. Best pets I've had. They're clean, loyal, friendly, and low upkeep. Terrific. They've even potty-trainable with less that 1-month of effort - I used to let mine run loose and kept ramps up so that they could return to their cages to crap.
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On-topic... If we can generate stem-cells applicable to human research trans-specially, who other than PETA would continue to object?
Re:Better hope (Score:0, Interesting)
Just think, people like you are voting Obama the Christian and Biden the Catholic into office. Whoopee! We'll have an administration that thinks America invented AIDS and demons are running around influencing world events.
Re:its only fair (Score:4, Interesting)
Soon there will be mobile liposuction centers every few blocks.
"Donate your fat, save lives!"
Not to mention "Drink beer, so you have fat to donate"
Re:Rat hearted overlords? (Score:4, Interesting)
There are a bit over 70 treatments using adult or cord blood stem cells (list here [stemcellresearch.org]) with embryonic cells being used in zero treatments. The plasticity of embryonic stem cells is a disadvantage it seems due to the tendency towards tumor formation.
Re:Better hope (Score:3, Interesting)
So I suppose my question would be why the intellectual elites want to spend their research monies on embryonic stem-cell research that is more expensive, less successful, and morally questionable to a large sector of society, rather than on research in areas where successes keep coming, the cells are available without moral complications, and the costs are in general lower.
Well, human embryonic stem (HES) cells have already proven invaluable in research. Notably it was by studying them that we found out how to make induced pluripotent stem cells (IPS), basically how to make any cell into personalized embryonic stem cells without the embryo or the tissue rejection. That's not something you can say about adult stem cells: they won't ever be able to make new spinal cord cells. IPS cells can, and if we hadn't been researching HES cells, we never would have figured out how to make IPS cells.
And THAT'S why you don't ban different types of research: you don't always know where it's going.
Re:The easy way (Score:2, Interesting)
Again, strictly speaking, coma patients are in a coma, and not brain dead, demented folk could quite possibly have life-preserving instinct. I won't argue the unconscious because, frankly, that's just ignorant.
I'm sorry, but genetics dictates that reproduction is a nearly boundless resource. Demented people and coma patients are not, nor is being demented or in a coma a part of living and reproducing.
If you want to argue for the rights of the unborn, stick to the unborn, or at least the reproductive cycle. A chance to lead a life != a life lead.
People with already established lives come first and always have.