14 DAY TRIAL // Treating the heart of an infant is radically different from doing the same with the heart of an adult, as any pediatric surgeon may tell you. Now, this is bound to get easier, thanks to an achievement reached by Rice University scientists.
The team was able to coerce stem cells derived from amniotic fluid to differentiate into blood vessels. This capability could be used to develop tissue patches that could be used on the little ones' hearts.
“We want to come up with technology to replace defective tissue with beating heart tissue made from stem cells sloughed off by the infant into the amniotic fluid,” Rice bioengineer and study leader Jeffrey Jacot explains.
I find this approach to be very innovative, simply because it allows experts to create the patches out of the children's own stem cells, therefore eliminating the risk of a rejected transplant. And doctors can't very well place infants on immnosuppressive drugs, now can they?