And the beat goes on: Dead rat hearts get second chance

William Atkins
Monday, 14 January 2008 20:16

Science - Biology

Taylor noted that such a regenerative method could be used on a human within ten years.

According to an article on Bloomberg.com, Taylor stated, “The heart is just a beautiful, elegant organ, and it would be very difficult to recreate it. We started thinking, `Wouldn't it be cool if we could just take the cells out and put new cells in?’.”

The research of Taylor and her colleagues has been written up in the January 13, 2008 issue of the journal Nature Medicine. The title of their article is “Perfusion-decellularized matrix: using nature's platform to engineer a bioartificial heart.”

Her team consists of Harald C. Ott, Thomas S Matthiesen, Saik-Kia Goh, Lauren D. Black, Stefan M. Kren, and Theoden I. Netoff.

The abstract to the paper states: “About 3,000 individuals in the United States are awaiting a donor heart; worldwide, 22 million individuals are living with heart failure. A bioartificial heart is a theoretical alternative to transplantation or mechanical left ventricular support. Generating a bioartificial heart requires engineering of cardiac architecture, appropriate cellular constituents and pump function.”

It continues: “We decellularized hearts by coronary perfusion with detergents, preserved the underlying extracellular matrix, and produced an acellular, perfusable vascular architecture, competent acellular valves and intact chamber geometry. To mimic cardiac cell composition, we reseeded these constructs with cardiac or endothelial cells. To establish function, we maintained eight constructs for up to 28 d by coronary perfusion in a bioreactor that simulated cardiac physiology. By day 4, we observed macroscopic contractions. By day 8, under physiological load and electrical stimulation, constructs could generate pump function (equivalent to about 2% of adult or 25% of 16-week fetal heart function) in a modified working heart preparation."