For the past few years, scientists have been growing meat in labs, promising a future where burgers don’t need cows. But what if that same tech - growing cells outside the body - could produce lab-grown hearts and other human organs? That’s exactly what researchers at the University Medical Center Göttingen (UMG) are doing with a groundbreaking heart patch made from lab-grown muscle.
Forget sci-fi. This is real. And for people with severe heart failure, it could mean the difference between life and death.
Source: UMG, Germany-Graphic showing cell based 'heart patch'.
A team led by Professor Wolfram-Hubertus Zimmermann, Director of the Department of Pharmacology and Toxicology at UMG, has successfully implanted bioengineered heart muscle into patients for the first time. This “engineered heart muscle” (EHM) patch, grown from stem cells in a collagen hydrogel, works just like cultivated meat. But instead of a gourmet filet, it’s regenerating failing hearts.
Before making the leap to humans, the research team tested the patches on rhesus monkeys. The results? Game-changing. The patches, packed with 200 million lab-grown heart cells, fused seamlessly with the monkeys’ hearts, strengthening muscle and restoring function.
No deadly arrhythmias. No rogue cell growth. Just a heart, rebuilding itself from scratch.
“We have shown in rhesus macaques that cardiac patch implantation can be applied to re-muscularise the failing heart,” says Professor Zimmermann. “Our work demonstrates for the first time that myocardial repair through lab-grown heart muscle is possible in humans.”
Here’s where it gets wild. If scientists can regrow heart muscle, why stop there? Lungs, kidneys, even entire hearts, grown to order, no donor needed. The implications are staggering. No more waiting lists. No more rejection risks. Just a patient’s own cells, transformed into whatever they need.
Source: PFN Ai Archives - Grown Heart, Lungs and Kidneys.
It won’t happen overnight, but this heart patch proves the concept works. The same tech reshaping the food industry brings humans one step closer to a world where dying from organ failure becomes a thing of the past. It's not if, but when.
For more information CLICK HERE
ENDS:
댓글