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Stem Cell News
Media Supresses Adult Stem Cell Breakthrough for
Heart Valves
Investor's Business Daily, April 3, 2007
Heart disease is a silent killer, but equally
hushed are reporters, politicians and activists who
disregard a politically incorrect cure. Grown from
your own body’s stem cells, we may not be that far
away from transplanted hearts.
A breakthrough that is praiseworthy has been
achieved by Sir Magdi Yacoub, who is a professor of
cardiac surgery at Imperial College London. For
hundreds of thousands of people who suffer from a
certain type of heart disease, Yacoub’s findings
could end this illness.
Yacoub, who has been called the world’s leading
heart surgeon, worked with his team to grow tissue
that functions identical to human heart valves. Prof.
Yacoub’s team may have found a way of providing
replacement heart valves to the estimated 600,000
people (according to the World Health Organization)
who will need them by 2010.
These findings may come as a revelation to some
because the media has decided not to follow the story
at all. Why would such a remarkable breakthrough not
garner any attention? The reason was because the
findings did not involve federal funding for embryonic
stem cells nor were the heart valves created from
embryonic stem cells. Adult stem cells extracted from
bone marrow were coaxed into growing the heart valve
tissue. This was yet another example of adult stem
cells and their contributions to humanity, far greater
than anything embryonic stem cells have accomplished.
A working heart valve could be available for human
patients within three to five years. Yacoub and his
team used specially designed collagen “scaffolds”
to grow the tissue in the shape of actual human heart
valves.
Yacoub says that most people will not need
individualized treatment, so the month long process of
growing a suitably-sized amount of tissue from a
patients own stem cells won’t be a deterring factor.
The majority of people would benefit from tissue grown
in advance from a variety of stem cells. Removing
one’s appendix is a routine procedure, and heart
valve replacement may someday be as simple.
The living tissue of the stem cell grown valves are
dynamic and can change shape as required, unlike the
valves their artificial counterparts that just open
and shut. Thus, the heart is not compromised by a
foreign object, and it can pump freely and without
obstruction of any kind.
The valves never need to be replaced, since they
grow old as people grown old. Children can have the
same replacement heart valve for the duration of their
entire lives.
An even bigger goal is on the horizon for Yacoub
and his team at Harefield Hospital in Middlesex. They
want to grow an entire human heart in the laboratory.
He says, "It is an ambitious project but not
impossible. If you want me to guess, I'd say 10
years."
In order to prevent post-op complications, patients
often require a lifetime of drugs. But the specially
grown tissue solves the rejection problem that
artificial valves present. To see how well the lab
grown tissue performs as part of an actual circulatory
system, the team will implant tissue into animals
later this year.
As if this research was not enough, another team in
Switzerland has achieved nearly identical results. Dr.
Simon Hoerstrup described how stem cells derived from
the amniotic fluid of a mother could be used to grow
heart valve tissue without harming the fetus. The
tissue from non-embryonic stem cells could then be
immediately implanted into a child upon birth if he or
she was diagnosed with congenital heart disease.
In order to repair organs that have suffered tissue
damage after heart attacks, Johns Hopkins University
researchers were able to use stem cells from the heart
tissue of adult pigs and in similar fashion as the
already mentioned research, heal the animals organs.
These findings also received almost no media coverage.
It is as if embryonic stem cell research is the
only kind in existence and there are no other options.
So the question stands: When will the showboat
politicians and media confess that research using stem
cells from other sources is in fact more promising
that embryonic stem cell research?
The answer may be never. But a safe bet would be
when the healthy hearts of pigs actually fly.
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