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- NEWS -
UofM Researchers create a new heart in the laboratory
In a medical first, University researchers have created a beating heart in the laboratory. If perfected, the technique may be used someday to generate new hearts for patients.
"The results were a home run," says Doris Taylor, director of the University's Center for Cardiovascular Repair and a principal investigator on the study.
"We knew that cell therapy--that is, transplanting cells into the heart--is not a panacea. So we started thinking, 'Is there a way to use cells to engineer heart tissue?'"
The process, called whole organ recellularization, can be done "with virtually any organ," Taylor says. |
The idea, she says, is to create whole new blood vessels or organs by implanting a patient's own cells into a matrix derived from a donor organ. This approach ought to bypass the problem of organ rejection because the matrix, being devoid of cells, shouldn't provoke an immune response. Even if it did, the new cells would lay down a fresh matrix of their own, which would turn off the immune response and free patients from the need to take immunosuppressive drugs.
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Top row: decellularization
Bottom row: recellularization |
"We just took nature's own building blocks to build a new organ," says Ott. Still, "When we saw the first contractions we were speechless."
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More... |
 Watch the video.
(Dr. Taylor photo - Patrick O'Leary
Heart photos - Thomas Matthiesen) |
University Faculty Member Wins Nobel Prize in Economics
Leonid Hurwicz, University Regents Professor Emeritus of Economics, joined Eric Maskin of Princeton University and Roger Myerson of the University of Chicago, as winner of the 2007 Nobel Prize in Economics. Professor Hurwicz was honored by the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences for laying the foundations of a theory that has led to "major breakthroughs in many areas of economics, including regulation theory, corporate finance, the theory of taxation and voting procedures."
His theories revolutionized the way people think about how to bring about desired economic change, sweeping away old ways of thinking that relied on central planning without regard to incentives for individuals. According to University of Minnesota Professor V. V. Chari, "That was a fundamental breakthrough in thinking about economics policy and economic reform…. He explained in mathematical, but common sense terms when we should expect markets to function well and when we should expect them to function poorly." Professor Hurwicz’s work had a major impact on the way people think about development problems in very poor countries, and indirectly affected a wide range of economic policies. more...
Professor Lawrence Rudnick, along with graduate student Shea Brown and associate professor Liliya Williams, recently announced an historic discovery that has captured attention around the world. They have found an enormous hole in the Universe, nearly a billion light-years across, empty of both normal matter such as stars, galaxies and gas, as well as the mysterious, unseen "dark matter." This hole, or void, is 1000 times bigger than typical voids. The hole is so vast that it would take light 1 billion years to cross, traveling more than 6 billion trillion miles.
"Not only has no one ever found a void this big, but we never even expected to find one this size," said Professor Rudnick. “It could just be the first.” If the existance and size of the void is confirmed, it will give theoretical astrophysicists much to consider. Nobody else has searched for voids using the data used by Professor Rudnick's research team. Rudnick, Brown, and Williams, reported their findings in a paper accepted for publication in the Astrophysical Journal. more...
University of Minnesota astronomy Professor Lawrence Rudnick (right), along with graduate student Shea Brown (left) and Associate Professor Liliya Williams.
Photo courtesy of Patrick O'Leary, University of Minnesota
The University's new $6 million Plant Pathology Containment Facility is the only public facility of its kind in the Midwest, and one of four in the United States. The facility, which opened in early November, 2007, will permit researchers to study crop-crippling pathogens and search for ways to manage the diseases they cause. The facility was built with funding from the State of Minnesota, the University of Minnesota, the Minnesota Department of Agriculture, and the USDA Forest Service. more...
R. Justin Stewart, a graduate student in the M.F. A. program in Art,
received an award for Outstanding Student Achievement in Contemporary Sculpture from the International Sculpture Center on October 6.
He is one of the 21 recipients selected from a pool of 339 college students from five countries. His winning sculpture,
a 15 feet-by-8 feet creation called "Connected", will be shown in the
Grounds For Sculpture Fall/Winter Exhibition (October 6, 2007, through April 27, 2008)
in New Jersey, and is featured in Sculpture magazine. more...
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