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U.S. Transhumanist Party – PUTTING SCIENCE, HEALTH, & TECHNOLOGY AT THE FOREFRONT OF AMERICAN POLITICS

Gene Cocktail Helps Hearts to Regenerate – Article by Steve Hill

Gene Cocktail Helps Hearts to Regenerate – Article by Steve Hill

March 4, 2018 Steve Hill Comments 0 Comment

Steve Hill


Editor’s Note: In this article, Steve Hill explains a technique that enables significant human tissue regeneration, so that it becomes possible to repair damaged human hearts. This technique can also be potentially applied to other body organs.  This article was originally published by the Life Extension Advocacy Foundation (LEAF).

                   ~ Kenneth Alum, Director of  Publication, U.S. Transhumanist Party, March 4, 2018

The human heart is an organ whose cells rarely divide, making tissue repair and regeneration a huge problem following a heart attack. Many animals, such as zebrafish and salamanders, are different; they can regenerate damaged hearts easily.

As humans, we also once had the same regenerative capacity during our early development, but after we were born, we lost this ability. This is also true for many other organs, including the brain, spinal cord, and pancreas. The cells in these tissues divide very rarely if at all, and this is a big problem. But, what if we could get that regenerative ability back and repair damage to our hearts the way these amazing animals do?

Researchers have been trying for decades to find out how we can enjoy the same tissue regeneration, but they have met with limited success—until now.

Unlocking cell division in cardiomyocytes

A research team led by Dr. Deepak Srivastava, president of the Gladstone Institutes, has finally achieved this long sought-after goal in a study published in the journal Cell [1]. The researchers have developed an efficient and reliable way of making non-dividing adult cardiomyocytes divide so that they can repair damaged hearts.

They identified four genes that regulate cell division in adult cardiomyocytes. When all four of them are combined together, they cause the cardiomyocytes to re-enter the cell cycle and start dividing quickly. They also demonstrated that following heart failure, these combined genes improve cardiac function significantly.

The researchers tested the technique in animal models using cardiomyocytes derived from human stem cells. They stained newly divided cells with a special dye in order to track them; they found that between 15 to 20 percent of the cells divided and remained alive thanks to the four-gene combo. This is a vast improvement on previous studies, which have only managed around 1 percent cell division in adult cardiomyocytes.

The team also made the technique simpler by identifying drugs that could replace two of the four genes involved in the combination. This still produced the same result as using all four genes and is significantly easier, logistically speaking.

Could be used in multiple tissues

As mentioned, the heart is not the only tissue that has cells that either do not divide or do so very slowly. The researchers believe that their technique could also potentially be applied to encourage other tissues and organs to regenerate. This is because the four genes are not unique to the heart and are found in other cells around the body.

If science can unlock the same regeneration in nerve cells, pancreatic cells, and retinal cells, this could be the basis of therapies for heart failure, brain damage, diabetes, blindness, and many other conditions. The good news is these four genes encourage cell division the same way in mice, rats, and human cells.

Conclusion

Manipulating non-dividing cells and returning them to the cell cycle to boost regeneration in organs and tissues holds great potential. Scientists have been working for decades to achieve this in the heart, and now it has been achieved. The next big step is to translate this approach to humans, and we wish them the very best in their future research.

Literature

[1] Mohamed, T. M., Ang, Y. S., Radzinsky, E., Zhou, P., Huang, Y., Elfenbein, A., … & Srivastava, D. (2017). Regulation of Cell Cycle to Stimulate Adult Cardiomyocyte Proliferation and Cardiac Regeneration.

About  Steve Hill

As a scientific writer and a devoted advocate of healthy longevity technologies Steve has provided the community with multiple educational articles, interviews and podcasts, helping the general public to better understand aging and the means to modify its dynamics. His materials can be found at H+ Magazine, Longevity reporter, Psychology Today and Singularity Weblog. He is a co-author of the book “Aging Prevention for All” – a guide for the general public exploring evidence-based means to extend healthy life (in press).

About LIFE EXTENSION ADVOCACY FOUNDATION (LEAF)

In 2014, the Life Extension Advocacy Foundation was established as a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization dedicated to promoting increased healthy human lifespan through fiscally sponsoring longevity research projects and raising awareness regarding the societal benefits of life extension. In 2015 they launched Lifespan.io, the first nonprofit crowdfunding platform focused on the biomedical research of aging.

They believe that this will enable the general public to influence the pace of research directly. To date they have successfully supported four research projects aimed at investigating different processes of aging and developing therapies to treat age-related diseases.

The LEAF team organizes educational events, takes part in different public and scientific conferences, and actively engages with the public on social media in order to help disseminate this crucial information. They initiate public dialogue aimed at regulatory improvement in the fields related to rejuvenation biotechnology.


Guest Articles
cardiomyocytes, cell division, Deepak Srivastava, Gladstone Institutes, human heart, journal Cell, LEAF, life extension, Life Extension Advocacy Foundation, longevity, regeneration, rejuvenation, research, Steve Hill, technology, Tissue Regeneration, tissue repair

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