Pingie: HTTP:: Scientists Turn the Body into a Bioreactor

HTTP:: Scientists Turn the Body into a Bioreactor
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In some serious heart conditions, patients' only hope for survival is related to receiving a heart 'patch,' a piece of engineered cardiac tissue, which is grafted directly onto their hearts. However, in order for the transplant to survive, it must receive a steady supply of oxygen and nutrients. In an attempt to solve these demands, scientists from the Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, Tel-Aviv University, and Soroka University Medical Center, in Israel, have developed a way of essentially transforming the human body into a bioreactor, capable of growing working blood vessels in a bioengineered cardiac patch. Their attempts, which are detailed in the latest issue of the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS), may pave the way for other research groups to create the first bioengineered materials capable of identifying, sticking to, and healing damaged heart tissue. The issue is that, first, they need a scaffold for the new cardiac patch. Onto this !
scaffold, new cells must then be grafted and grown, which is done in an external bioreactor. Two main types of cells could be placed on these 3D scaffoldings, the team reports. Most importantly, stem cells that have the ability to differentiate into any type of cardiac cells are needed, and then muscle cells, which could directly benefit ...
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