SMALL discs of heart tissue produced from human stem cells could eventually provide a source of replacement heart valves.
Magdi Yacoub and his UK-based team at the Harefield Heart Science Centre in Middlesex created the 3-centimetre discs by exposing human stem cells from bone marrow to chemicals that change them into heart-valve cells. These were grown into discs over scaffolds of collagen, a natural material found in connective tissue. The team hopes to test prototypes of the human valves in animals later this year.
Yacoub told The Guardian newspaper in London that full results will be published in the Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society in August. 鈥淟ike everything publicised ahead of time, it鈥檚 hard to work out exactly what they鈥檝e done,鈥� says Stephen Minger, a stem-cell scientist at King鈥檚 College London. Yacoub told The Guardian that similar valves could be fitted in patients within five years. It would be at least 10 years before a whole heart could be grown from stem cells, he said.
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鈥淪imilar valves could be fitted to patients within five years鈥�
