British Doctor Claims to Grow Heart Valve First - 5 Months After Swiss (4/3/2007)
Yesterday British heart surgeon Sir Magdi Yacoub claims to have grown the first heart valves from stem cells at Harefield hospital in the Great Britain (BBC article). The only problem is that Dr. Simon Hoerstrup of the University of Zurich in Switzerland did the same thing, only in November 2006.
Both claimed to have grown heart valves using stems cells, though the methods to vary. Dr. Hoerstrup's technique involved harvesting fetal stems cells, from the amniotic fluid surrounding a baby in the womb. Dr. Yacoub on the other hand harvested stem cells from bone marrow, which is actually much more invasive.
Dr. Yacoub's technique may be more applicable though since they can be grown from the patients own stem cells. A valve grown from the patient's own stem cells would theoretically also have no need of immunosuppressant drugs to stop the body from rejecting it.
Regardless of who got to grow a heart valve first though, the achievement is a great boon for the thousands of people a year that need faulty heart valves replaced.
Neither group has actually transplanted the valves into a human yet, though both think it will happen very soon. The real race will be who successfully transplants a stem cell grown heart valve first.
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