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A Marrow-to-Muscle Breakthrough Reuters 7:27 a.m. June 20, 2001 PDT SINGAPORE -- Medical researchers in Singapore say they have changed human bone marrow cells into heart muscle in a breakthrough that could offer millions of sufferers from heart disease an alternative to transplants. "We have shown that these cells would survive in a heart and actually would make a heart muscle ... out of bone marrow," cardiothoracic surgeon said Dr. Reida El Oakley, a cardiothoracic surgeon. "We will be able to rejuvenate the damaged heart muscle." Oakley and two researchers at National University Hospital genetically modified human bone marrow stem cells -- which have the capability to form new tissue -- to take on the special charcteristics of a human heart cell. The modified cells were implanted into live mice last year. The research has been submitted to an international medical journal for publication and Oakley hopes to begin clinical trials on heart patients within a year. "The heart muscle ... has a very sophisticated communications system between cells," Oakley said. But once damaged, through a heart attack, for example, the muscle cells become useless scar tissue. "It doesn't contract. It doesn't pump anymore and that's why these patients will end up with heart failure," Oakley said. In 1995, heart disease killed about 15 million people -- or 30 percent of total global deaths. The number is expected to climb to 40 percent by 2020, the World Health Organization says. Current methods of treating heart disease include long-term medication, temporary devices such as artificial pumps, and heart transplants. But fewer than one in 10 people who need heart transplants will find suitable donors, Oakley said. Two recent clinical trials in Paris and Los Angeles successfully implanted skeletal muscle stem cells into the human heart to assist the damaged muscle. But skeletal muscle stem cells are difficult to extract and take several days to grow in the laboratory, Oakley said. In comparison, bone marrow cells are in ample supply. When surgeons open the chest cavity in a heart bypass operation, bone marrow from the breast bone can be collected, converted into heart muscle cells in four to six hours and then injected into the heart at the end of the operation, Oakley said. Copyright © 2001 Reuters Limited. http://www.wired.com/news/technology/0,1282,44671,00.html ************ ---------------------------------------------------------------------- To sign-off Parkinsn send a message to: mailto:[log in to unmask] In the body of the message put: signoff parkinsn