1/13/08

Times: Medical Breakthrough of Breathtaking Proportions - Minnesota Scientist (formerly at Yeshiva University) Grows New Hearts in Rats


This is a Medical Breakthrough of Breathtaking Proportions.

A Minnesota scientist (formerly at Yeshiva University) has grown new hearts in rats.
Researchers Create New Rat Heart in Lab
By LAWRENCE K. ALTMAN

Medicine’s dream of growing new human hearts and other organs to repair or replace damaged ones received a significant boost on Sunday when University of Minnesota researchers reported success in creating a beating rat heart in a laboratory.

Experts not involved in the Minnesota work called it “a landmark achievement” and “a stunning” advance. But they and the Minnesota researchers cautioned that the dream, if it is ever realized, is still at least 10 years away.

Dr. Doris A. Taylor, the head of the team that created the rat heart, said that she followed a guiding principle of her laboratory — “give nature the tools and get out of the way.”

“We just took nature’s own building blocks to build a new organ,” Dr. Taylor said of her team’s report in the journal, Nature Medicine....more in the Times
U of M researchers show the process of growing a heart from newborn rat cardiac cells. Video provided by the University of Minnesota. You can view the Video page here.

2 comments:

Reb Yudel said...

I wonder if Yeshiva can use it to grow new hearts in roshei yeshiva...

Tzvee Zahavy said...

The Borowitz Report: "Elsewhere, in a positive development for Vice President Dick Cheney, scientists in a laboratory at the University of Minnesota created a living rat’s heart."