Growing heart cells in a petri dish
What are some uses for a dish of cells? Well, if the cells are alive and growing, the uses are several. This article discusses a new technique to grow human heart cells in the lab. If you are interested, read the article and do a one-URL report in the comments on: adult stem cells, drug testing on heart tissue, genetic arrhythmias, OR growing new heart tissue. Be sure to use your own words and pick a new topic.
9 comments:
I think its amazing how scientists have discovered this method of growing heart cells. With so much controversy over the use of embryonic stem cells, it seems like a big deal to now be able to grow new cells from whats "left over" from open heart surgeries. Even more exciting is the fact that scientists can now use these new heart muscle cells to study diseases and defects of the heart. I guess I find it so interesting because it would help people like myself who were born with congenital heart defects and such. Its also interesting to read about how the cells, when separated with trysin, still beat on their own! And once put back together, they beat in unison. After reading that, and how if they don't beat together, heart arrhythmias can occur, i decided to look up this topic. Here's what I found:
Back in November, the American Heart Association did a study of two different strategies to save patients who suffer from atrial fibrillation and heart failure. The first strategy was to simply maintain a normal heart rhythm in the patients and the second was to control the heart rate in people with atrial fibrillation and heart failure. After studying 1,376 patients, the results showed that "rhythm control does not improve mortality when compared to rate control”. The treatments for the rhythm control group was electrical cardioversion combined with antiarrhymic drug therapy and the treatment for the heart rate control group was titrated doses of beta-blockers, digoxin and pacemakers if needed. The AHA stated plain and simple, "The results of the trial do not suggest that a strategy of rhythm control should be advocated for patients with atrial fibrillation and congestive heart failure".
http://www.americanheart.org/presenter.jhtml?identifier=3051715
I think its interestiong how scientists keep discovering new things. The whole idea of stem cells has continued to be a controversial issue, however the growing of heart cells seems to be a very important new discovery. The use of stem cells help to discover and better understand different functions of bodily organs. The discovery of being able to grow heart cells seems to be very helpful in helping understand different congenital defects and diseases that occur in the heart. This allows for a greater grasp in helping treat these problems.
http://www.21stcenturysciencetech.com/articles/winter01/stem_cell.html
This article discusses adult stem cells. Adult stem cells, are found in all tissues of a growing human being.They are greatly used in reasearch because under the right conditions can grow into anything. With stem cells, scientists can try to better understand different diseases and defects. They can study the celss and better understand what is happening and try to see what kind of medications can be hopefully usesful. Overall i think stem cell research is important when used properly. This new type of technology can really make a difference.
When i was in high school I did an entire research regarding the cloning of embryonic cells. What really interested me is not the science, but the moral and ethical ongoing debate regarding cloning. In fact, research has been severely inhibited because of people taking a stand against it. However, I was perusing through websites and found information on adult stem cells. By defintion, the "primary roles of adult stem cells in a living organism are to maintain and repair the tissue in which they are found." My dad (doctor) says that knowledge in two things is vast and invisible: religion and medicine. The idea that the origin of adult stem cells in mature tissues is unknown just reinforces his point.
Emryonic cells and adult stem cells differ in certain ways. One of the interesting things i found out was that "embryonic stem cells can be relatively easily grown in culture, while adult stem cells are rare in mature tissues." This distinction plays a vital role as large numbers of cells are needed for stem cell replacement therapies. Adult stem cells can be useful because they can be expanded in culture and then reintroduced into the patients body without any rejection from the immune system. The following website can be of help to anyone seeking more information:
http://stemcells.nih.gov/info/basics/basics4.asp
Stem cell research represents a promising future for the 21st century in curing many neurologic and cardiac diseases. The ability to repair damaged hearts with new heart muscle cells would be a tremenous advance if it could be accomplished in our lifetime.
In regard to genetic cardiac arrhythmias, there appear to be three major disorders: Congential long QT syndrome, Brugada syndrome and familial polymorphic ventricular tachycardia. The availability of chromosomal markers that span the human genome will hopefully open the door for more research in this field. Genes have been identified for several disorders responsible for arrhythmias and sudden death. These genes all encode ion channels and are referred to as channelopathy genes. Hopefully, with continued advances in research with gene therapy and treatments based on knowledge of the molecular defect, genetic arrhythmias can be treated before they manifest themselves.
http://arjournals.annualreviews.org/doi/abs/10.1146/annurev.med.54.073002.182112
This article proves to be an amazing step towards progressing scientific research. The findings from the UMC Utretch are a huge leap forward in the area of stem cell research. I think this is an amazing discovery because the cells are able to develop on their own as opposed to rats or mice. To coincide with my interest with this subject I explored other ways that stem cell research has taken huge strides in regards to the heart tissue growth. Within my findings was an article concerning the same time of heart tissue growth conducted by the University of Michigan. Both of these findings are very similar, except for the fact that the cells within the UMC Utretch experiment are able to develop on their own when those within the University of Michigan experiment are conducted with rats. Both of these findings, however, are extremely progressive and support the same idea. I found the article to be very interesting, and actually catch my attention.
Here is the website for the article:
http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2006-12/uomh-ana120706.php
I'm surprised at this medical breakthrough. I was never too up-to-date on the whole stem cells issue but this certainly blew me away. I researched a bit on the growing of new heart tissue and found some interesting facts.
I was shocked to find that when a person goes through an heart attack, an amount of heart tissues will be permanently damaged. I found this shocking because that means its SO EASY to permanently damage your tissues! However, there has been further medical progression in finding a way to grow new heart tissues. By adding a drug called heparin to a combination of liquid made up of negatively-charged amphiphile molecules, this would grow new heart tissues. In addition to this new found process, medical experts have also found a way to suppress tissue growth. This means that not ONLY can doctors promote growth of new heart tissues, but they can also STOP growth of heart tissues, which is especially helpful in the areas of carcinogens.
http://www.sciencentral.com/articles/view.php3?type=article&article_id=218392665
I have known about stem cells for quite some time now, but have always thought that it was an underfunded endevor that would probably net very little results in the immediate future.Another interesting fact that I have learned from reading the article is that the stem cell material is found from left over material from heart operations. I always thougth that stem cells were harvested from the umbilical cord of infants after they were born.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adult_stem_cell
This site shares a great deal of information about adult stem cells. They define them as " undifferentiated cells found throughout the body after embryonic development that divide to replenish dying cells and regenerate damaged tissues. Also known as somatic (from Greek Σωματικóς, of the body) stem cells, they can be found in children, as well as adults."
It is interesting to know that there are cells inside of adult bodies that are able to change into any different type of cell in the body. Also it is astonishing that an entire organ could theoretically be regenerated from just a few of these cells from the organ.
It's truly amazing to see how much medicine along with technology has improved and specialized. Especially with all these breakthrough in medicine, it's crazy to see how stem cells from adult human hearts has been used to be transformed into new heart muscle cells. Now, with stem cells, medicine is growing at a faster pace and soon heart muscles can improve and save damaged heart tissue from heart attacks. That is truly incredible. After reading the article i decided to go into adult stem cells:
http://stemcells.nih.gov/info/basics/basics4.asp
An adult muscle cell has the abilities to renew itself,and can change itself to yield to major differential cell types and tissues. The major role of adult muscle cells is to maintain and repair the tissues. Adult stem tissues include: the brain, bone marrow, peripheral blood, blood vessels, skeletal muscle, skin and liver. With these newfound information about stem cells, scientist are trying to find new ways of growing stem cells in cell culture in order to manipulate them in order to generate differential cell types that can be used to treat all sorts of diseases and injuries. Some include: replacing the dopamine-producing cells in the brains of Parkinson's patients, developing insulin-producing cells for diabetes and repairing damaged heart muscle following a heart attack with cardiac muscle cells.
The expansion of stem cells is something extraordinary. To be able to create heart muscle cells from left over cells of a heart tissue is a huge step in science. And to use these cells to solve problems and study problems like cardiac arrhythmia is beneficial in solving many health problems. The interesting topic behind adult stem cells is the controversy over it. The moral issue is intriguing.
I found an article that explains adult stem cells as less of an ethical issue than embryonic stem cells.
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/2005/06/25/MNGTKDF1LI1.DTL
This article addresses adult stem cells as a promising step towards solving health problems, and it avoids the ethical issues. Scientists have learned that embedded in our skin, blood, and bones are different breeds of "adult" stem cells that may produce the same medical advances of embryonic stem cells without disturbing the "ethical waters." Adult stem cells can be harvested without destroying human embryos. The problem with Adult stem cells is they are unable to turn into any organ in the human body and they do not renew themselves unlimitedly like embryonic stem cells. Another problem adult stem cells may produce is a dangerous immune reaction if they are transplanted into another person. However, adult stem cells have enormous potential. Such as creating heart tissues to study cardiac arrhythmia. The possibilities are still growing.
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