Rebuilding broken hearts. Biologists and engineers working together in the fledgling field of tissue engineering are within reach of one of their greatest goals: constructing a living human heart patch.
A heart broken by love usually heals with time, but damage to cardiac muscle caused by a heart attack gets progressively worse. Unlike liver or skin, heart tissue cannot regenerate, so the scar left after a heart attack remains a noncontractile dead zone.
Cohen
Smadar
S
Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, Isreal.
Leor
Jonathan
J
D001672:Biocompatible Materials; D046508:Culture Techniques; D006321:Heart / Q000502:physiology*; D006801:Humans; D009203:Myocardial Infarction / Q000473:pathology* / Q000503:physiopathology; D009206:Myocardium / Q000473:pathology*; D012038:Regeneration; D033581:Stem Cell Transplantation; D023822:Tissue Engineering / Q000295:instrumentation / Q000379:methods
D001672:Biocompatible Materials