Thursday, October 15, 2009

Embryonic Stem Cell Grown to Heart Muscle Tissue

The political arguments for embryonic stem cell research took on new meaning today when it was announced in this AP news release that a team of research scientists at Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard University have “grown” a heart muscle from an embryonic stem cell.

And the heart muscle spontaneous began to beat.

The muscle, that of a mouse is the first ever engineered by man.

This has amazing repercussions.

First of all, it means that we are now on the path to a cure for heart disease. When a person has a heart attack, the heart muscle becomes damaged. When it gets damaged it ceases to function properly, leading eventually to still more heart attacks and ultimately one that ends life.

Imagine it. Sometime in the future, closer now than ever, we will simply grow a heart muscle in a laboratory and use that to replace damaged muscles.

And this from a science that was banned by the previous Republican administration.

Banned for religious reasons by rightwing evangelicals who used the years of Republican power to foist their religious viewpoints on the American people.

That we survived this experience is truly a miracle on the order of the loaves and fishes.

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