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A new breakthrough in medical technology has raised hopes that someday, doctors will be able to create organs for transplant from scratch. This breakthrough comes in the form of a heart: an artificially beating heart created in a laboratory.
The heart was created from the "skeleton" of a dead one. It actually sounds a bit like a modern form of necromancy: scientists strip all the cells from a dead heart down to its protein framework, then they recreate the heart from there.
The framework, or "skeleton," provides the shape of the new heart. This skeleton is seeded with live "progenitor" cells that grow over the skeleton. Eventually these cells will link together and will form the new organ. The heart started contracting after eight days.
The research was conducted by scientists in the University of Minnesota. So far the process has only been done with rats and pigs. The process is still experimental and probably won't see human application for years yet.
The breakthrough opens a lot of avenues of exploration for medicine. Aside from organ transplant candidates not having to wait for a donor, custom-built organs will also make sure their patients' bodies will not reject their new body part.
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