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So just a couple of weeks ago we reported on Japanese scientists growing working mini
human kidneys on the heads of mice. Weird, we're not joking though you can click an annotation
now and it should take you there. Anyway, scientists at the University of Pittsburgh
School of Medicine have just gone one better, growing a working miniature human heart in
a petri dish.
The team used skin cells from an adult human, reverse engineered back into stem cells. They
then implanted them onto the basic framework of veins and non-cellular material from a
stripped down mouses heart, called the scaffold.
After a few weeks, the cells had regrown into a heart featuring all the major necessary
components, and beating entirely on its own, the scaffolding structure seemingly able to
signal to the cells what they needed to turn into to create the final organ.
The artificial heart beats some 40-50 times a minute - that's about half the speed of
a full sized human one, but let's not be too picky, this is still a monumental achievement.
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