US researchers make dead rats’ hearts beat in laboratory

Mumbai: Researchers at the University of Minnesota Centre for Cardiovascular Repair claim to have revived hearts of dead rats in the laboratory.

Researchers injected into the dead hearts a gelatin-like scaffold with heart cells from newborn rats, feeding them a nutrient-rich solution and leaving them in the lab to grow.

Four days later, the hearts started to contract. The researchers used a pacemaker to coordinate the contractions. They hooked up the hearts to a pump so they were being filled with fluids and added a bit of pressure to simulate blood pressure.

Eight days later, the hearts started to pump.

The scientists hope the discovery to some day lead to customised organ transplants for people.

The study, appeared in the journal Nature Medicine, offers a way to fulfil the promise of using stem cells to grow tailor-made organs for transplant.

A British team last month said they generated mature, beating heart cells from embryonic stem cells that could be used to make a heart patch.

Researchers have also tried injecting heart stem cells directly into the scarred heart in the hopes of regenerating damaged tissue.

The Minnesota team took another approach.

They used the decellularisation process for making tissue heart valves and blood vessels.

They did the process with rat and pig hearts. But they only reported on the regeneration of the rat hearts.