Bioengineered Mouse Heart Gets a Beat Using Human Cells 38
cylonlover writes "Heart transplants have given new life to thousands, but are only an unfulfilled hope to thousands more due to a shortage of donor organs. With the goal of meeting this shortfall, scientists at the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine have bioengineered a mouse heart in the lab that beats on its own. The mouse heart had its cells replaced with human cells, offering the potential of growing custom replacement hearts that wouldn't be rejected by the recipient."
Re:Great (Score:5, Interesting)
i've been worried that we might run out of mice, but with this new technology, we can now save those mice who need heart transplants. We won't have to wait for a donar mouse to be killed in an accident any more! It's also hard to convince them to sign a donor cars, as very few of them know how to write.
I realize you are joking. But Hurricane Sandy hit the labs at NYU last year and killed all of the mice and rats that had been bred for 80 different traits for neurological studies. They lost about 20 years worth of work. The last I heard, they've been able to recover only 35% of what was lost due to other labs either donating or sending back lines that came from there.