‘Ghost Heart’ With Pig & Human Scaffolding Aims To Reduce Organ Rejections

As Doris Taylor, a molecular biologist, witnessed stem cells from a heart begin to beat in unison in a petri dish, she knew she was stumbling upon a revelation that would shake the medicine community. As the director of regenerative medicine research at Texas Heart Institute, Houston up until 2020, Taylor saw this as a sign of a potential heart being recreated out of tissue and cells.  

During the Life Itself conference, Taylor presented a scaffolding of a pig’s heart that was infused with human stem cells.

This was introduced as an organ to be used for implantation into human bodies and a solution to lower the risk of the body rejecting the heart, since it also consisted of the patient’s own tissues.

This use of a person’s own tissues allows for a personalized heart to be created, allowing for heart transplants to be planned out and designed for each patient. It might one day eliminate the need for anti-rejection drugs too.

Taylor used a machine called BAB, which she had taught to introduce stem cells into the chambers of the ‘ghost heart’.

Heart disease remains the number-one killer in the United States, but with life taking form inside a sterile glass casing, we may now find ourselves on the precipice of a solution to the never-ending waiting lists for a new heart.  

[via CNN and Texas Medical Center, cover image via Texas Medical Center]