Heart, heal yourself
A way has been found to teach the heart to heal itself on its own
Vladimir Kuznetsov, Hi-News, based on Rutgers Today: Can Stem Cells Help a Diseased Heart Heal Itself? Rutgers Researcher Achieves Important Milestone
The heart is one of the most important organs of our body, and given the increasingly disappointing statistics on the growth of cardiovascular diseases, the development of new treatment methods is extremely important. And recently, a group of researchers from Rutgers University took an important step towards "teaching the heart to treat itself on its own," which should reduce the number of surgical interventions and improve people's lives.
According to the editorial board of Frontiers in Cell and Developmental Biology (Ghobrial et al., The Structure and Biological Function of CREG), the basic principle is to take connective tissue cells from the human heart, "reverse engineer" them into heart stem cells, and then "transform" them into heart muscle cells. However, this is far from new and the real breakthrough of the team of scientists is that the newly created heart muscle cells independently connect into fully functional structures. Usually, the heart cells made in the manner described above do not come together and do not beat at the same frequency. To achieve this, scientists used the CREG protein.
"Fibroblasts, connective tissue cells isolated from the heart, have been transformed into stem cells. This was done so that when the CREG protein could affect them and cause differentiation into cells of the same species. Heart failure has reached epidemic proportions. Currently, the only treatment option is transplantation or connecting the patient to an artificial heart machine. We are working to cure the organ."
Although the study is still far from completion, we can already say that the method is quite promising. The CREG protein is able, according to scientists, to create "as much tissue as necessary" for the recovery of patients. And due to the fact that new cells are created on the basis of their own, there is no need to fear a transplant rejection reaction.
Portal "Eternal youth" http://vechnayamolodost.ru