According to CNET, a group of scientists from Harvard and Emory University generated 500 “biohybrid” fish with human heart cells lining their tail fins. The purpose was to research human heart cells and the rhythm of their beats, not to build the aquarium of the future. For a while, the tiny constructs sat in a lab unsupervised. The small fish then leapt to life, much to the delight of the experts.
Sung-Jin Park, a former postdoctoral researcher at Harvard and co-author of a study about the project published this week in the journal Science, told CNET, “We simply stored them in our incubator, and then we just forgot about them for two or three weeks.” “When we first opened the incubator, all of the fish were swimming about on their own.”
For around 100 days, the unusual fish “swam” freely in a pool of nutrients as scientists observed their motions. Heart cells contract and stretch frequently, causing their tail fins to move back and forth, as they are prone to do. Park told CNET, “We don’t need any external stimulation.” “They stimulate themselves, exercise independently, and grow stronger.”
Park has big plans, telling the journal that he wants to take “this kind of biohybrid robotic system to space,” adding that it would be a highly effective approach to research microgravity-induced muscle atrophy, a problem that has plagued astronauts who spend long amounts of time in space.
The team still faces a significant challenge: they have no control over the rate at which their heart cells beat. However, for the time being, they are optimistic that the research will lead to better pacemakers or perhaps mechanical hearts. “Our ultimate goal is to develop a [fully working] heart,” Park told CNET. “In the meanwhile, we’re trying to build more mature cardiac tissue.” “Our ultimate goal is to develop a [fully working] heart,” Park told CNET. “In the meanwhile, we’re trying to build more mature cardiac tissue.”
Sung-Jin Park, a former postdoctoral scholar at Harvard’s Disease Biophysics Group, said, “We just placed them in our incubator and then completely forgot about them for two or three weeks.” He’s also a co-first author of research on the fish that was published in the journal Science on Thursday. “When we first opened the incubator, all of the fish were swimming about on their own.” The heart cells contracted, stretched, and otherwise functioned like genuine hearts, causing the tails to move independently.
