Scientists Grow Heart - Live Tissue

Scientists Create Heart

Scientists at the University of Minnesota have created what's being called the "Holy Grail" of medical research.

Researchers started with the dead heart of a rat. Using a detergent, scientists washed away the rat's cells. All that was left was a gelatin like framework. Scientists took the framework and injected heart cells from newborn rats back into it. Within a week, the heart was beating and pumping once again. While a rat heart can't help humans, doctors say a pig heart can.

"It looks like a ghost heart," said Taylor.

Then, the researchers reseeded the scaffolding with heart cells from newborn rats. In just eight days, and with an electrical jump-start, the cells grew into a new, beating heart that pumped some blood--about two percent of the amount of blood pumped by an adult rat heart.

"When we first saw the contractions, we were speechless," said researcher Harold Ott, of Harvard Medical School.

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Originally posted by Boondock78
this is awesome.

put me down for two hearts, a set of kidneys, a liver, and a prostate....
i'll pick them up as needed