Israeli scientists turn skin cells into healthy heart muscle - Polidicks

[quote] LONDON - Scientists have turned skin tissue from heart attack patients into fresh, beating heart cells in a first step towards a new therapy for the condition. The researchers, based in Haifa, Israel, said the results meant they might eventually be able to reprogramme patients' cells to repair their own damaged hearts. "We have shown that it's possible to take skin cells from an elderly patient with advanced heart failure and end up with his own beating cells in a laboratory dish that are healthy and young - the equivalent to the stage of his heart cells when he was just born," said Dr Lior Gepstein from the Technion-Israel Institute of Technology, who led the research. The technique was first demonstrated with human cells in 2007, when two teams of scientists led by Dr Shinya Yamanaka in Japan and Dr James Thomson in the United States identified pluripotency genes that could wind back the clock for adult cells to a younger stage of development. In the new study, researchers took skin cells from two men, aged 51 and 61, who had survived heart attacks and reprogrammed them into an immature state by infecting them with a virus that carried three pluripotency genes. The scientists then grew these "induced pluripotent stem cells" into fresh heart muscle and removed the virus and extra genes used in the procedure. The cells looked healthy in a petri dish and, crucially, when injected into rat hearts, were woven into the organ and worked alongside the muscle cells already there. "What was interesting was the cells could integrate with the rat tissue and contract in synchrony. If you put the cells in and they beat with a completely different timing, you wouldn't see any improvement in heart function and may even cause a dangerous arrhythmia," Dr Gepstein said. The researchers, whose study was published in the European Heart Journal yesterday, said clinical trials of the technique could begin within 10 years. Dr Nicholas Mills, a consultant cardiologist at Edinburgh University, said: "These findings are encouraging and take us a step closer to ... identifying an effective means of repairing the heart." Agencies [/quote] [url]http://www.todayonline.com/World/EDC120524-0000020/Israeli-scientists-turn-skin-cells-into-healthy-heart-muscle[/url] Awesome.

And then the virus evolves and starts turning people into giant hearts

[QUOTE=Glitch360;36074599]And then the virus evolves and starts turning people into giant hearts[/QUOTE] I won't be a strong heart :(

Heart problems run in my family. My great-grandpa and my grandpa both died before old age of heart attacks. I wonder if this will help prevent that for me later in life?

[QUOTE=JumJum;36074760]Heart problems run in my family. My great-grandpa and my grandpa both died before old age of heart attacks. I wonder if this will help prevent that for me later in life?[/QUOTE] you have to have a known problem first

Israelites are so good at science, it's awesome.

Amazing