Carla Valentine

Carla Valentine Instagram – 👻 Carlaween continues with the “Ghost” for Monster Monday. This pale, decellularized “ghost heart” is a little miracle for organ donation (shown here with an ordinary heart, image from www.nature.com). The concept is a project started by molecular biologist Dr Doris Taylor and which began around 2008 in the USA. A pig’s heart is placed in a solution which washes or removes the cells that make up most of the tissue, leaving just a protein scaffold behind – and amazingly part of this “washing” process involves baby shampoo! The scaffold, a transparent extracellular matrix, is neutral meaning it won’t be rejected by the new host: i.e. the person receiving the heart. After being re-filled with stem cells from the blood or bone marrow of the host, it’s placed into a bioreactor and left to mature into a fully beating heart with the new ‘identity’. This takes a lot of work and time and is now done in a sterile robotic chamber. The heart can then be transplanted into the recipient as if it was their own organ, eliminating the need for anti-rejection drugs and improving the post-transplant quality of life as less time is required in hospital. Dr Taylor left academia in 2020 and is currently working with private investors to bring her creation to the public. Human trials are apparently “upcoming”.
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I would absolutely LOVE to teach how to make these in a Saturday workshop (like I do with regular heart preservation classes – obviously just the scaffold though; I can’t infuse it with cells!!!!) I could use lambs hearts like I usually do. WHO WOULD LOVE THIS?! 👻❤ Tell me, in comments, if you’d like this or if you’d like me to start doing organ preservation classes again… I miss them! ⬇️⬇️⬇️
#carlaween #humanremains #monster #halloweencowntdown #ghost #remains2beseen #anatomy #pathology #specimen #heart #hearttransplant #ghostheart #halloween #stemcells #organdonation #transplant #monstermonday | Posted on 25/Oct/2023 18:25:39