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Published online 13 January 2008 | Nature | doi:10.1038/news.2008.435
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Ghost heart has a tiny beat
Rat organs can be stripped of their cells and regrown to pump blood.
Rat hearts, stripped of their cells by detergents, have been used as a scaffold to engineer a bioartificial heart, which can amazingly pump a little like the original organ.
With further development, the method may one day be used to repair heart damage or even generate new hearts for transplantation.
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This is one of those advances in science that makes so much sense that you wonder why someone didn't think of it earlier. Stimulating a person's own stem cells to initiate repair and regeneration is at least as important a development as the discovery of antibiotics. More information on adult stem cell research at http://herbalnutrition-for-naturalhealth.com.