Scientists Successful in Re-purposing Skin Cells...

Newsdaily reports that researchers based in Technion-Israel Institute of Technology,have for for first time ever, succeeded in taking skin cells and transforming them into beating heart tissue.

The researchers speculate that a patient with advanced heart failure instead of going through the difficulties of a transplant could use their own cells to create heart tissue that would be equivalent to healthy and young heart cells which would grow into their own heart, doing away with the need for transplant drugs and the ilk.

The research team accomplished the feat by taking skin cells from two patients with heart failure and transformed theses cells by adding three genes and a molecule called valproic acid to the cell nucleus.

The study, published in the European Heart Journal on Wednesday, said clinical trials of the technique could begin within 10 years.

Read complete article here

Thanks Herb for the heads up.

Turbine Charged Man!

Wow, sounds like a super hero don't it? Truth be told a few decades ago and he would have been. Turbines it seems are not the purview of jet aircraft. A pair turbine like pumps make up the centrifugal turbine heart pump developed by doctors at the Texas Heart Institute. That's right, we are talking about a blood pumping device that first off doesn't pump and if it doesn't pump, anyone fitted with just such a device will not have a pulse...weird huh? But the only reason we have a pulse is that the heart is very specialized muscle. Once a muscle contracts, to do more work, it must relax. (and it has to pick up fuel and dump off waste)

According to the Dvice blog article:

• (the device has) been tested for quite a while on animals along with one successful human trial — with no ill effects so far, too.
• The FDA still has to approve this technology, but it's looking like turbine heart replacements might be the next step forward in medical implants.

Check out the Device article which also contains an NPR link as well HERE

First fully self contained artificial heart to be ready in 2.5 years

Developers are approximately two and a half years away from human trials of the first truly artificial human heart. The heart is made from chemically treated animal tissues, which allows the body to accept it rather than rejecting it as has been an issue with past artificial hearts. Another advantage is that the new heart will be fully implantable. The artificial heart is even shaped like a real heart, with the same blood flow inside and outside the heart. What is truly remarkable about this heart is that unlike most devices installed to day which are meant as a "bridge" until a donor heart is available, this unit is meant to be the a totally artificial permanent heart replacement.

<- MailOnline via Dvice ->

Single gene deletion boosts lifespan

According to news@nature.com

Researchers have created a mutant mouse that lives longer despite eating more and weighing less — all thanks to the loss of a single protein. Without this protein, the body is less susceptible to the heart-pounding effects of the hormone adrenaline, and may become more resistant to some forms of stress. Scientists are already developing drugs to inhibit this protein, called type 5 adenylyl cyclase (AC5). Drugs that block adrenaline signalling, called beta-blockers, are known to help patients who have had heart attacks or suffer from an irregular heartbeat. As the researchers revealed in 2003, mutant mice lacking AC5 were more resistant to heart failure caused by pressure within the heart. But in the process, the research team also realised that the mutant mice lived longer than their normal counterparts.

Thanks to Shaun A. Saunders for the post