This lab-made heart chamber with living cells beats strongly IANS Updated: July 18th, 2022, 18:05 IST in Sci-Tech 0 Pic Credit- IANS Share on Facebook Share on Twitter Share on WhatsApp Share on Linkedin Toronto: Canadian researchers have grown a small-scale model of a human left heart ventricle – the main chamber of the heart – in the lab. In the human heart, the left ventricle is the one that pumps freshly oxygenated blood into the aorta, and from there, into the rest of the body. The bioartificial tissue construct is made with living heart cells and beats strongly enough to pump fluid inside a bioreactor, said the team from the University of Toronto.
The new lab-grown model, described in the journal Advanced Biology, could offer researchers a new way to study a wide range of heart diseases and conditions, as well as test potential therapies. “With our model, we can measure ejection volume – how much fluid gets pushed out each time the ventricle contracts – as well as the pressure of that fluid,” said Sargol Okhovatian, a doctoral candidate in the varsity’s Institute of Biomedical Engineering. “With these models, we can study not only cell function, but tissue function and organ function, all without the need for invasive surgery or animal experimentation.
We can also use them to screen large libraries of drug candidate molecules for positive or negative effects,” added Milica Radisic, Professor in the department of chemical engineering and applied chemistry. To grow the human cells in three dimensions (3D), the team used tiny scaffolds made from biocompatible polymers. The model is a tube composed of three overlapping layers of heart cells that beat in unison, pumping fluid out of the hole at the end.
The inner diameter of the tube is 0. 5 millimetres and its height is about 1 millimetre, making it the size of the ventricle in a human foetus at about the 19th week of gestation. Further, they measured the ejection volume and pressure using a conductance catheter, the same tool used to assess these parameters in living patients.
At the moment, the model can only produce a small fraction – less than five per cent – of the ejection pressure that a real heart could, but Okhovatian said that this is to be expected given the scale of the model. “Our model has three layers, but a real heart would have 11,” she said. “We can add more layers, but that makes it hard for oxygen to diffuse through, so the cells in the middle layers start to die.
Real hearts have vasculature, or blood vessels, to solve this problem, so we need to find a way to replicate that. ” IANS Tags: Heart Heart chamber Lab-made Share Tweet Send Share Suggest A Correction Enter your email to get our daily news in your inbox. Leave this field empty if you’re human: Related Posts Parents fume as edtech platforms force them to buy online courses July 18, 2022 Ola CEO shares plan on sports car, upcoming update for e-scooters July 18, 2022 HP unveils 2 powerful Pavilion series laptops in India July 18, 2022 Huawei is set to launch HarmonyOS 3 July 27 July 18, 2022 LG first in India to sell over 10 lakh dual-inverter ACs in 6 months July 18, 2022 US researchers produce Covid antibodies using hen egg July 18, 2022 Leave a Reply Cancel reply Your email address will not be published.
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