In a dramatic breakthrough in treating heart disease, Israeli researchers announced they successfully grew heart muscle in rats' abdomens and used it to patch and repair their hearts following heart attacks. Led by Dr. Tal Dvir, the researchers planted cardiac cells taken from newborn rats on a laboratory "scaffold" and seeded them with growth agents. Once the cells had grown sufficiently, the entire scaffold was implanted in the rats' abdomens, where the tissue continued to grow and developed a network of blood vessels. A week later, the new tissue was removed from the abdomens and transplanted into the damaged hearts.
In previous attempts to develop heart patches, the tissue failed to survive the implantation process. The experiment’s results were published this week in the American journal: Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
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