Politics
Monday January 14, 2008
See today's LifeSiteNews stories
Adult Stem Cells May Hold Key to Ethical Heart Transplants
By John Connolly
ORLANDO, Florida, January 14, 2008 (LifeSiteNews.com) - Scientists have created a beating heart using laboratory techniques that involve adult stem cells and that could revolutionize organ donation.
Scientists at the University of Minnesota reported their findings at the American Heart Association's annual meeting in Orlando, Florida. The highly experimental procedure involved removing all the cells from a rat's dead heart, and using its protein blueprint as a guide for live adult stem cells seeded on the old heart.
"We took nature's building blocks to build a new organ," said Harald Ott, who worked on the project. "When we saw the first contractions we were speechless."
The ethical questions concerning heart donation could be completely sidestepped by such a process. Furthermore a new heart, grown in this way, would not be rejected by the patient's immune system, which is a common problem with organ transplants.
The procedure, however, is still in an experimental state, and it will probably be years before it can be tried on humans. Professor Doris Taylor, director of the University of Minnesota's center for cardiovascular repair, is very hopeful that this new breakthrough is a significant step towards the ability to create custom-built hearts as well as other organs.
"The idea would be to develop transplantable blood vessels or whole organs that are made from your own cells," Taylor said. "It opens a door to the notion that you can make any organ - kidney, liver or pancreas. You name it and we hope we can make it. This is a proof of concept. Going forward, our goal is to use a patient's stem cells to build a new heart."
Adult stem cells have led to many breakthroughs in medical science in recent years, in stark contrast to the lack of progress with ethically unacceptable embryonic stem cell research. Adult stem cells may be used to treat everything from heart attacks to damaged teeth. Many experimental projects have shown and are increasingly showing great promise for use of adult stem cells on human subjects.
See previous LifeSiteNews.com coverage:
Adult Stem Cells Successfully Regenerate Pig Teeth, New Study Finds
http://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2007/jan/07010502.html
Adult Stem Cells Used to Treat Emergency Heart Attack Patients
http://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2006/nov/06110809.html
Success Stories with Adult Stem Cells Coming in Almost Too Fast to Track
http://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2005/jan/05012007.html
Adult Stem Cell Discoveries Could Treat Alzheimer's and Blindness
http://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2005/feb/05021405.html
Back to TopSHARE THIS STORY: E-mail Print Newsvine Digg Reddit Del.icio.us Facebook
Latest Headlines
- Pro-life Efforts in Britain Undermined by Pro-Life Efforts as Crucial Abortion Decisions Being Made in Parliament
- Harry Potter Author Gets Quebec Antihomophobia Award
- Government-Sponsored National "Youth Conference" Promotes Abortion and Homosexuality
- Filipino Cardinal Bars Outwardly Gay Participation in Marian Celebration
- Brazilian Homosexual Leader Posts Home Addresses of Pro-Family Activists
- Massachusetts Senator Proposes Additional $300,000 for Pro-Homosexual Programs in Schools
Most Read this Week
- Texas Pastor Connected with Prominent Gay Porn Website
- Texas Pastor Resigns After Involvement in Gay Porn Site Exposed
- Governor Schwarzenegger Vows to Fight Reinstatement of Traditional Marriage
- Archbishop: For the Clergy Obedience to Church "Requires Preaching About the Moral Evil of Contraception"
- California Supreme Court Imposes Homosexual 'Marriage' on State
- Anglican Acceptance of both Abortion and Sanctity of Life will Allow the Creation of a Gay Church: Gene Robinson
- Time Magazine: "Want to wreck the environment? Have a baby." - Prince Philip Concurs
- Pro-Abortion Expression Permitted, Pro-Life Forbidden on Campus at Australia University
- Ontario Forces Taxpayers to Pay for “Sex-Change” Operations
- California Supreme Court Asked to Stay "Gay Marriage" Order until November Public Ballot
MORE NEWS: 
LifeSiteNews.com Home Page Last 10 Days Archives Special Reports
Copyright © LifeSiteNews.com. This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-No Derivatives License. You may republish this article without request provided the content is not altered and it is clearly attributed to "LifeSiteNews.com". Any Internet re-publishing of original LifeSiteNews articles MUST additionally include a live link to www.LifeSiteNews.com. Republishing of articles on LifeSiteNews that have come from other news sources as noted is subject to the conditions of those sources.