Muscles grown in the laboratory were first transplanted to humans.

Surgeons have reported the successful completion of the world's first transplant of grown muscle fibers into a damaged area of ​​the heart of a patient suffering from severe heart failure.

Instead of transplanting an entire organ,researchers from Osaka University used the patient's induced pluripotent stem cells obtained from the blood of healthy donors. Modern medicine can return them to an embryonic state and turn them into the desired type of tissue, in this case, the fibers of the heart muscle were created.

The cells grown in this way were placed onbiodegradable sheets with a width of 4-5 cm and a thickness of 0.1 mm, which were transplanted onto damaged areas of the heart of a patient with ischemic cardiomyopathy. With this disease, the organ functions poorly, because its muscles receive little blood, in severe cases, a transplant is required.

After the surgery , the transplanted sheets will dissolve and the cells will continue to grow and release a protein that contributes to theregeneration of blood vessels, which will improve the performance of the heart.

The Japanese team hopes the technology will help save lives, but will continue to monitor the first patient for a year to assess the effectiveness of the operation and the risk of cancer, as some of the 100 million cells transplanted could potentially be cancerous.

If all goes well, then in the next three years, surgeons plan to conduct nine more similar operations for patients with the same condition.

In addition to growing new tissues, scientists are also successfully studying ways to fight cancer.Recently, Korean researchers discovered a protein that is able to return mutated cells to their normal state.

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