About a five minute audio at the link.
Scientists use a detergent often found in shampoo to strip away the muscle cells of an actual heart, leaving the structural lattice behind. They then repopulate the lattice with muscle cells, hit it with a pacemaker, and voila!
Of course, it still needs work, but there are a bunch of guys in Guantanamo Bay who could use a functional heart, so why not use them to skip straight to Phase II trials with this? This way also avoids the problems involved when researchers start getting attached to the lab rats.
|