Researchers at King's College in London, the Fondazione Monasterio hospital in Pisa and the Sant'Anna School of Advanced Studies university in Pisa have determined that expression of microRNA-199a regenerates cells in pig hearts damaged during heart attacks, according to an article published Wednesday. Most research into regenerating damaged heart tissue has been based on stem cells and unsuccessful up to now.
In this breakthrough, the researchers identified a gene in humans that causes the body to produce cardiac muscle cells.
At the moment, the gene typically switches off a month into our lives, meaning we have to make do with those cells for the rest of our lives. This is why heart attack damage cannot be mended.
In this study, scientists managed to isolate functioning versions of the gene and inject them into pig hearts in a harmless virus, which spread them across the organ.
The process was highly successful, repairing "a large part of the damage" after a month by increasing muscle and decreasing scarring in the heart. This left it almost fully functioning, according to [Professor Mauro Giacca of King's College].
It should be noted that while this repair of scar tissue is encouraging, there are potential downsides also
subsequent persistent and uncontrolled expression of the microRNA resulted in sudden arrhythmic death of most of the treated pigs
Accordingly the article notes that "dosage of this therapy needs to be tightly controlled."
There are currently 23 million individuals in the world affected by mycardial infarctions which cause this type of (currently) permanent damage.
(Score: 2) by realDonaldTrump on Monday May 13 2019, @11:13AM
And the next best is the Regular, but chewed. Sounds ABSOLUTELY DISGUSTING but it saves lives. The Heart Attack comes, reach for the Aspirin, folks!!!!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday May 13 2019, @12:19PM (2 children)
as far as I know it has a purely mechanical job, so it's easy to replace with a mechanical version.
other organs do nontrivial stuff with hormones and other chemistry, but the heart is "easy".
since it's also a leading cause of death and other problems, I don't know why we don't have reasonable artificial versions yet.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by MostCynical on Monday May 13 2019, @12:33PM (1 child)
Heart rate is controlled via complicated [ucdavis.edu] chemical processes.
Until we can also mimic these, and artifical heart will keep you alive, but you won't be climbing stairs, running, having sex, or even bending over to tie your shoes without passing out or collapsing.
"I guess once you start doubting, there's no end to it." -Batou, Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday May 13 2019, @01:13PM
oh well. I was hoping it was only complicated brain/spine signals --- I'm under the impression those are mostly electric, so there's some hope to figure them out.
meta: I only have to talk about medicine for 10 seconds and it suddenly becomes obvious why I chose physics instead.
(Score: 2) by mhajicek on Monday May 13 2019, @12:41PM (2 children)
They need another retrovirus to turn the gene off again.
The spacelike surfaces of time foliations can have a cusp at the surface of discontinuity. - P. Hajicek
(Score: 2) by HiThere on Monday May 13 2019, @07:49PM
That's, or course, one solution. Another is an antagonist pill that you need to keep taking to keep the gene suppressed. That way if you have another heart attack you can just stop taking the pill for awhile. The on-going stream of funding is a purely serendipitous result.
Javascript is what you use to allow unknown third parties to run software you have no idea about on your computer.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday May 14 2019, @02:08PM
No, no they don't.... [youtube.com]
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Monday May 13 2019, @08:15PM
autophagy via fasting.