"Scientists Find Heart Stem Cells"
ScienceNow. Retrieved at: http://sciencenow.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/full/2009/702/1
Scientists are constantly trying to find new ways to better the stem cell research, and now they have found a heart stem cell that could change the future. They have found a cardiac stem cell that can be used for all the major heart cell types in the heart. Since heart tissue cannot regenerate itself, this will help patients with damaged heart cells to be able to heal their own heart. The protein that was found had been found in fetal mouse hearts, but now they have been able to find it in human fetal hearts. Once they pinpointed the right cells they took several other steps to make sure that these findings actually worked. They were able to prove that these cells were the “master stem cells” by showing that they could grow into any of the hearts major cell types, which are heart muscle, smooth muscle and the muscle cells that line the blood vessels. The scientists said that these newfound cells could not be used for therapy seeing as they could develop into undesired cells. Researchers believe that they could be able to grow heart parts for patients such as heart strips or vavles.
Wednesday, October 14, 2009
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)