Israeli Scientists Create Heart

In an announcement sure to excite the Tin Man, Israel grew a tiny heart using human embryonic stem cells.

A tiny beating "heart in a dish" has been grown by Israeli scientists in a world first which will offer hope to millions of cardiac patients.

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The first human trials using sections of grown tissue could start within 10 years. Other applications could become reality even sooner.

Gepstein said, "We test drugs on animals, but we would get more reliable results if we tested them on actual human tissues."

This work builds on a 2003 study showing that hESCs could become cardiomyocytes (the cells that make your heart beat). The new finding expands on the earlier work by proving that hESCs can be used to grow blood vessels as well, providing the cells with oxygen.

To catch you up:

A collaboration among American universities used tissue engineering to create beating heart tissue from neonatal rat blood in 1999. In 2001, PPL Therapeutics dedifferentiated cow skin cells into stem cells, and then turned them into beating heart cells.

Scientists Create Tiny Heart In a Dish [Sunday Tribune]