Hearts of dead rats revived
From Times Staff and Wire Reports
Researchers reported Monday in the journal Nature Medicine that they had coaxed hearts from dead rats to beat again and said the discovery might lead to customized organ transplants for people.
The University of Minnesota team used decellularization to wash away existing cells from the hearts of dead rats while leaving the basic collagen structure intact. It injected this gelatin-like scaffold with heart cells from newborn rats, fed the cells a nutrient-rich solution and left them in the lab to grow.
