Umbilical Cord Blood Helping Build New Heart Valves?

November 11th, 2008

The stem-cell debate is really only a debate for those that don’t understand anything about it. When you hear about some of the things that research may bring to us in the future you have to ask yourself why people are against it.

A new study may give children with heart defects perfectly-matched new heart valves built using stem cells from their umbilical cord blood, according to research presented at the American Heart Association’s Scientific Sessions 2008. How awesome is that?

Here’s a bit of background on the study from Science Daily:

When infants are born with malfunctioning heart valves that can’t be surgically repaired, they rely on replacements from animal tissue, compatible human organ donations or artificial materials. These replacements are lifesaving, but don’t grow and change shape as a child develops; so two or more surgeries may be needed to replace outgrown valves. The animal tissue may also stiffen over time as well and be less durable than a normal human valve. With artificial valves, children also must be treated with blood thinners.

“In our concept, if prenatal testing shows a heart defect, you could collect blood from the umbilical cord at birth, harvest the stem cells, and fabricate a heart valve that is ready when the baby needs it,” said Ralf Sodian, M.D., lead author of the study and a cardiac surgeon at the University Hospital of Munich.

It is just nice to see these studies show some remarkable results. Voters have been kind of split in passing the use of embryonic stem-cell use, but Michigan passed a proposal this past week that will allow it by a narrow margin. More and more people are understanding what this study can do for us, and our kids.

When you are on the net taking a look at some new tape drives take some time to read a little about stem-cell research and see what all the fuss is about.