Stem Cells in the Heart? 158
NewScientist reports that researchers have discovered stem cells in the heart, leading them to believe that the heart can regenerate itself. From the article: "The finding raises the possibility that these cardiac stem cells could one day be manipulated to rebuild tissues damaged by heart disease - still the leading cause of death in the US and UK. Because fully developed heart cells do not divide, experts have believed the organ was unable to regenerate after injury. But, in 2003, researchers at Piero Anversa's laboratory at New York Medical College in Valhalla, New York, US, discovered stem cells in the hearts of mice, and subsequently humans. However, they still did not know whether these stem cells actually resided in the heart or had merely migrated there from another tissue, such as bone marrow."
what exactly is the news here? (Score:5, Informative)
But there was really not much actual science in this article.
Are we talking about adult, embryonic or.. I assume not, but cord blood stem cells.
I assume we are talking about adult stem cells. These have been discovered and are old news. In fact adult stem cells exist in basically any tissue, which includes the heart... So what exactly was the big news story here about?
Re:what exactly is the news here? (Score:5, Informative)
1. They are not talking about embryonic cells. These are often referred to as "cardiac stem cells" and we each have them in our hearts. Thus they would be considered adult stem cells. As mentioned, their existence was established by Anversa's lab (and confirmed by others) a few years ago. That was a huge milestone, because we previously believed that all cells in the heart were "terminally differentiated" or incapable of generating new cells. We now know that there *are* cells in the hear that can do this, but not fast enough to make a difference in most cases. For example, if you have a heart attack, part of the muscle dies. For whatever reason (not enough cells, don't replicate fast enough, etc.), the cardiac stem cells are unable to completely repair the damage. Current trials of stem cells in the heart have focused on delivering cells derived from other sources (bone marrow, muscle cells, etc.), but it would be ideal to understand enough about the cardiac stem cells to be able to just "activate" them or at least improve the efficiency of what they do.
2. You are absolutely right we are talking about adult stem cells and even that those exist in the heart is old news. The only news here is that this is a step towards identifying them more efficiently/effectively (which would help as alluded to in my point #1). It's an important step, but an incremental one and I don't think it merited a Slashdot story - I agree with you that it's not that big of a deal.
Heard of this before.... (Score:5, Informative)
Fantastic they discovered stems cells, but the heart repairing itself when relieved of load is not news.
(btw, I don't remember the name of the device used when they discovered this, but it was basically a small, simple liquid pump installed next to the heart. They didn't try to mimic a pulse, figuring it was unneccesary. They were right.)
Re:what exactly is the news here? (Score:5, Informative)
Pumps (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Limited to heart tissue? (Score:1, Informative)
It also means that you can't retrieve, say, brain stem cells without killing the person first.
Embryonic stem cells don't have the limits that adult stem cells do, and they are much easier to obtain.
Would you rather be cut open to get stem cell treatment or merely take some medecine?
Re:This would be really helpful for someone I know (Score:4, Informative)
Also, this development would not help your friend. These are cardiac stem cells, so they can only develop into cardiac tissue. The aorta is a blood vessel, and is composed of material very different to the heart. It wouldn't help with the visible scar tissue for the same reason.
Re:What about... (Score:1, Informative)
Re:Heart Removal... (Score:3, Informative)
Re:what exactly is the news here? (Score:2, Informative)
Although I tend to think that popular science articles like this one are more "look at the cool gadgets we want to exist in 20 years" rather than "look at the cool gadgets that will exist in 20 years," I think this article is very relevant to this topic, especially what you were saying about the heart regenerating itself after damage from minor attacks.
Re:Limited to heart tissue? (Score:3, Informative)
Of course, when it comes to actual therapy, techniques will have to be developed that rely on adult stem cells. The whole point of stem cell therapy is that you use your own stem cells to regrow tissue that won't be rejected by your body. If you use embryonic stem cells to regrow stuff, because the stuff regrown is still a foreign body, you'd still be stuck with all the anti-rejection medication current transplant recipients need.
The primary use of embryonic stem cells is not therepeutic, it's research oriented. Because embryonic stem cells are undifferentiated, it's easier to use them to do research. The idea is that the techniques developed using easy to obtain embryonic stem cells can then be translated into using adult stem cells, which is where the therapies are going to come from.
I'm not a microbiologist, but that's what I've picked up from the debate.
Re:what exactly is the news here? (Score:3, Informative)
It would be interesting to find out what the effects of removing the damaged tissue might be. Could it be possible that new functional tissue would grow in its place? Maybe enough to get the job done? Of course this is speaking from not knowing how the damaged tissue effect the hearts operation or if it has been tried before.
Re:This would be really helpful for someone I know (Score:2, Informative)
But we're doing that in Thailand already (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Heard of this before.... (Score:2, Informative)