This Partial Beating Heart Was Grown in a Lab
This could be the first step toward something major.
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00:00Heart issues are scary for anyone who has one, mainly because getting a new ticker is
00:08no easy feat.
00:09But now scientists might be one step closer to changing all of that, as they have just
00:13grown a partial heart in a lab that beats.
00:16Right now it's just one ventricle, but it's able to pump like a heart and move fluids
00:20by doing so.
00:21The researchers from the University of Toronto and University of Montreal say it's not only
00:25a step towards building a full working heart model, but it's also giving them an inside
00:29look at what volume of fluid can be moved and at what specific pressure, something impossible
00:33with other investigation methods.
00:35The whole thing was reverse engineered from rat cell cultures, grown onto a 3D printed
00:39mesh, guiding the tissue growth around it.
00:42They're calling it a proof of concept for studying the human heart more closely, perhaps
00:46eventually allowing them to build a human analogue with which to test new pharmaceutical
00:50candidates or maybe even one day growing a genetically identical human heart in a lab
00:54for transplant, one that won't be rejected by the body and circumventing the donor waiting
00:59list altogether.