The Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences published the results of a research conducted at Duke University on the regeneration of muscle tissues from stem cells. The research team of Professor NenadBursac experimented with muscle tissue from mice. The stem cells from the tissue were isolated and bound with fibrinogen, a substance naturally occurring in blood clots, and allowed to grow in-lab.
The team tested whether the lab-grown muscle would have the strength and the ability to regrow like normal muscles. In a dish, they destroyed a part of the tissue with a toxic substance. Ten days later, the partly-destroyed tissue regrew 80-90% of its initial strength prior to the toxin application. In another observation, the researchers implanted the muscle tissue into a rat and, through a monitoring device, they were able to record that in a 2-week period the muscle increased its strength 3 times.
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This research result is undoubtedly a significant breakthrough in the field of biomedical engineering. Artificially grown muscle tissues that behave like the normal muscle will be vital for people with muscle injuries, those who’ve had accidents, and for scientists testing new drugs. Scientists have long experimented how to regrow muscles or produce muscle substitutes that had the ability to self-repair. The team definitely made headway with this research. They look forward to understanding muscle-wasting better, and helping patients with atrophied muscles restore function.