[The following is an exact transcript of this podcast.] One of
the goals of regenerative medicine is to make tissue to replace
our own damaged body parts. That’s still a ways off. But
starting with mouse embryonic stem cells, researchers have
succeeded in creating heart muscle that actually beats. The
study appears in the October 16th issue of the journal Science.
Different sets of progenitor cells in the heart give rise to two
different types of heart cells—muscle and nonmuscle. To make
beating heart muscle, researchers needed to figure out just
which cells were the ones that they needed. They used colored
fluorescent tags to identify the groups in question in embryos,
allowing the correct cells to be harvested. But that’s just step
one. The cells needed to link up in a form that will allow them
to beat together. So the researchers borrowed from microchip
technology. They created patterns on a film, much like the
design for a computer chip. Laying down the cells within these
patterns forces them to take the