A TOTAL ECLIPSE OF THE HEART CELLS. (KACEY RONALDSON-BOUCHARD AND GORDANA VUNJAK-NOVAKOVIC / COLUMBIA ENGINEERING)
Columbia scientists have created a model of cardiac muscle that mimics the muscle found in adult hearts. Researchers turned stem cells into cardiac cells, then zapped them with electricity to make them contract as they developed. They increased the frequency of those shocks a little bit every day, which helped to imitate the changes that heart tissue undergoes during the final few weeks of fetal development. The result: Engineered tissue that closely mirrors human heart tissue, created in just four weeks. It marks another step toward creating reliable and affordable human heart models to use in drug development.