Tuesday, May 25, 2021

Lab-grown minihearts beat like the real thing

Amazing stuff!

"They are no bigger than sesame seeds, and they pulse with a hypnotic rhythm. These are human “minihearts,” the first to be created in the lab with clearly beating chambers. The miniature organs, or organoids, mimic the working heart of a 25-day-old human embryo and could help unravel many mysteries—including why babies’ hearts don’t scar after they experience a heart attack. ...
Although “miniorgans” like brains, guts, and livers have been grown in dishes for more than 10 years, heart organoids have been more challenging. The first ones, comprised of mouse cardiac cells, could contract rhythmically in a dish, but they looked more like a lump of cardiac cells than a proper heart ...
The minihearts, which have so far survived for more than 3 months in the lab, will help scientists see heart development in unprecedented detail. They might also reveal the origins of cardiac problems like congenital heart defects in babies and cardiac cell death after heart attacks ..."

"... We also show that Human heart organoids (hHOs) can recreate complex metabolic disorders associated with CHD by establishing the first in vitro human model of diabetes during pregnancy (DDP) to study embryonic CHD. morphological and metabolically effects of increased glucose and insulin, showing the capability of modeling the effects of diabetes during pregnancy (DDP). Our heart organoid model constitutes a powerful novel tool for translational studies in human cardiac development and disease."

Lab-grown minihearts beat like the real thing | Science | AAAS

Here is the link to the preprint research article:

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