{"id":16801,"date":"2015-09-01T14:47:08","date_gmt":"2015-09-01T21:47:08","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2015\/09\/new-tissue-velcro-could-help-repair-damaged-hearts"},"modified":"2017-06-04T20:24:29","modified_gmt":"2017-06-05T03:24:29","slug":"new-tissue-velcro-could-help-repair-damaged-hearts","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2015\/09\/new-tissue-velcro-could-help-repair-damaged-hearts","title":{"rendered":"New \u2018Tissue Velcro\u2019 could help repair damaged hearts"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a class=\\'blog-photo\\' href=\"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog.images\/new-tissue-velcro-could-help-repair-damaged-hearts.jpg\"><\/a><\/p>\n<p>Engineers at the University of Toronto just made assembling functional heart tissue as easy as fastening your shoes. The team has created a biocompatible scaffold that allows sheets of beating heart cells to snap together just like Velcro\u2122.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cOne of the main advantages is the ease of use,\u201d says biomedical engineer Professor Milica Radisic, who led the project. \u201cWe can build larger tissue structures immediately before they are needed, and disassemble them just as easily. I don\u2019t know of any other technique that gives this ability.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Growing heart muscle cells in the lab is nothing new. The problem is that too often, these cells don\u2019t resemble those found in the body. Real heart cells grow in an environment replete with protein scaffolds and support cells that help shape them into long, lean beating machines. In contrast, lab-grown cells often lack these supports, and tend to be amorphous and weak. Radisic and her team focus on engineering artificial environments that more closely imitate what cells see in the body, resulting in tougher, more robust cells.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.sciencedaily.com\/releases\/2015\/08\/150828142946.htm\" target=\"_blank\">Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Engineers at the University of Toronto just made assembling functional heart tissue as easy as fastening your shoes. The team has created a biocompatible scaffold that allows sheets of beating heart cells to snap together just like Velcro\u2122. \u201cOne of the main advantages is the ease of use,\u201d says biomedical engineer Professor Milica Radisic, who [\u2026]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":367,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11,38],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-16801","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-biotech-medical","category-engineering"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16801","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/367"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=16801"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16801\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":69645,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16801\/revisions\/69645"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=16801"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=16801"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=16801"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}