Our
friends at FRC report on this exciting
breakthrough in ethical adult stem cell research. Once again, ethical alternatives belie the
notion that embryonic stem cells are a necessary avenue of research that should
be supported with taxpayer dollars.
Excerpt:
[In a recent] online issue of Nature Medicine, scientists
from the University
of Minnesota announced
that using ethical alternatives, their research has resulted in the successful
creation of a beating rat heart. As part of the tests, the team hollowed out a
rat heart of its cells, leaving only the network of tubes where the old blood
vessels had been. Scientists seeded the heart's casing with non-embryonic cells
and watched as they latched onto the old framework and grew new heart tissue.
Within eight days the rat heart began pumping so well that its beating could be
easily seen. Dr. Doris Taylor, who led the research, said that while the team is
not ready to replicate the tests in humans, it could be less than a decade away
from attempting heart transplant trials in patients. "With modifications,
scientists should be able to grow a human heart by taking stem cells from a
patient's bone marrow and placing them in a cadaver heart that has been
prepared as a scaffold," Dr. Taylor said.
HT: FRC