Scientists announced on Tuesday that they had used stem cells to grow human heart tissue that contracted spontaneously in a petri dish - marking advancement in the quest to manufacture transplant organs. Furthermore, a team from the University of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, used induced pluripotent stem (iPS) cells generated from human skin cells to create precursor heart cells called MCPs. iPS cells are mature human cells reprogrammed into a versatile, primitive state from which they can be ready in action to develop into any kind of cell of the body.

The researchers wrote in the journal Nature Communications that the primitive heart cells originated in this way were attached to a mouse heart scaffold from which the researchers had removed all mouse heart cells.

(AW:Samrat Biswas)