Growing a Heart

Using cells from a donor rat, researchers in Australia have succeeded in growing a separate, beating heart inside a recipient rat. Next, they’ll skip the donor and use cells from a rat’s own body to create a heart. Professor Wayne Morrison believes that “within five years people would be able to grow new organs from their own cells, and within 10 years tissue engineering might replace organ transplantation.”

In addition to growing a completely new heart, other uses for engineered heart tissue include:

• Repairing a congenital defect
• Help recovery from a heart attack
• Use in major blood vessels to help the heart function

Here’s how they did it.

The institute has developed a special chamber, basically an empty box in the words of Professor Morrison, which is placed inside the animal’s body. A blood vessel is implanted in it using microsurgery techniques.

Inside that chamber, scientists mix cells with “matrix materials” — other biological elements that act as a scaffold — to create the environment to grow certain types of tissues.

Different solutions of matrix materials will produce different organs and tissues. So far the institute has created breast tissue, pancreas tissue (which secretes insulin), fat tissue and muscle. But the heart tissue is the crowning glory.

Isn’t science amazing?

The Age, June 8, 2006

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