Aging heart cells rejuvenated by modified stem cells

Damaged and aged heart tissue of older heart failure patients was rejuvenated by stem cells modified by scientists, according to research presented at the American Heart Association’s Basic Cardiovascular Sciences 2012 Scientific Sessions.

“Since patients with heart failure are normally elderly, their cardiac stem cells aren’t very healthy,” said Sadia Mohsin, Ph.D., one of the study authors and a post-doctoral research scholar at San Diego State University’s Heart Institute in San Diego, Cal. “We modified these biopsied stem cells and made them healthier. It is like turning back the clock so these cells can thrive again.”

 

In this image, green represents myocytes newly formed by the transplanted cardiac stem cells. Red represents myocytes, blue shows the nuclei of the cells. Red and green colors together means that the transplanted cardiac stem cells have formed new myocytes. (Credit: Courtesy of the Journal of the American College of Cardiology)

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Rabbits kept alive by oxygen injections

Rabbits with blocked windpipes have been kept alive for up to 15 minutes without a single breath, after researchers injected oxygen-filled microparticles into the animals’ blood.

Oxygenating the blood by bypassing the lungs in this way could save the lives of people with impaired breathing or obstructed airways, says John Kheir, a cardiologist at the Children’s Hospital Boston in Massachusetts, who led the team. The results are published today in Science Translational Medicine1.

The technique has the potential to prevent cardiac arrest and brain injury induced by oxygen deprivation, and to avoid cerebral palsy resulting from a compromised fetal blood supply.

via Rabbits kept alive by oxygen injections : Nature News & Comment.

Successful transplant of patient-derived stem cells into mice with muscular dystrophy

Stem cells from patients with a rare form of muscular dystrophy have been successfully transplanted into mice affected by the same form of dystrophy, according to a new study published June 27 in Science Translational Medicine.

For the first time, scientists have turned muscular dystrophy patients’ fibroblast cells (common cells found in connective tissue) into stem cells and then differentiated them into muscle precursor cells. The muscle cells were then genetically modified and transplanted into mice.