Human hearts can now be replaced

[clandestine]

"Human hearts replaced by 10,000 RPM artificial pump with no pulse.

At least fifty calves and three human beings are living with no pulse in their bodies, thanks to an artificial pump that replaced their naturally-grown hearts, as detailed in a story from Popular Science. Doctors Bud Frazier and Billy Cohn devised the artificial organ, and it can completely replace a heart and provide a continuous flow of blood throughout a body without recreating a pulse."

http://www.theverge.com/2012/3/4/2844740/human-hearts-replaced-by-10000-rpm-artificial-pump-with-no-pulse

Hopefully an indicator of significant biomedical advances to come in the near future.

[NotBelievingIt]

Pulse rate is a measure of the rate of blood flowing through the veins that is tied with the heart beat.

Problem - what happens to these creatures when they need to raise their "heart" rate or lower it? Their is no capture of the signal...??

[WashedOut]

It's always perplexed me how someone can live with an artificial organ inside their body and have no problems and yet a bald guy can't have some type of synthetic hair implanted into a layer of skin without running into a host of problems.

[NeedHairASAP]

It's always perplexed me how someone can live with an artificial organ inside their body and have no problems and yet a bald guy can't have some type of synthetic hair implanted into a layer of skin without running into a host of problems.

I would just get fake inserts and shave my head

maybe if they used the heartpump material for the little hairs with hooks

[Maradona]

It's always perplexed me how someone can live with an artificial organ inside their body and have no problems and yet a bald guy can't have some type of synthetic hair implanted into a layer of skin without running into a host of problems.

Nobody's gonna notice my artificial heart unless......



I put a human heart on my bald head, a hairy one please.

[bigentries]

What kind of life quality do these people have?

Yes, it's great to stay with your loved ones, but I've doubt they stay "normal". They probably have to live a secluded life and avoid any kind of stress for the rest of their lives

With cosmetic procedures, is either close to perfection or nothing.
Comparing these kind of procedures to something cosmetic like a hair loss cure is irrelevant, because we already have shitty procedures that are "enough" and that is not what we want.

We don't want an artificial heart that is just "enough" to live, we basically want a full heart replacement that works in our 70's like we were teenagers again

[clandestine]

With cosmetic procedures, is either close to perfection or nothing.
Comparing these kind of procedures to something cosmetic like a hair loss cure is irrelevant, because we already have shitty procedures that are "enough" and that is not what we want.

There has never been a clinical treatment specifically developed for hair loss that worked. Whatever effect finasteride and minoxidil have on hair was accidental.

And I disagree. I'm not necessarily comparing, moreso pointing to the fact that we are moving forward in medicine, and regarding biomedical engineering. This is good.

[BMD1]

It's always perplexed me how someone can live with an artificial organ inside their body and have no problems and yet a bald guy can't have some type of synthetic hair implanted into a layer of skin without running into a host of problems.

Balding isn't recognised as anything serious therefore it doesn't get the funding nor the right people working on the cure.
Instead it gets crappy companies out to make as much money as possible on as little cost effective work as possible.
The cure wont be in our generation IMO.

[clandestine]

Balding isn't recognised as anything serious therefore it doesn't get the funding nor the right people working on the cure.
Instead it gets crappy companies out to make as much money as possible on as little cost effective work as possible.
The cure wont be in our generation IMO.

Wouldn't kill you to exude a little optimism mate.

To refute, going blind isn't necessarily life-threatening, and could therefore be considered as 'not anything serious'. Yet there is an abundance of funding and research dedicated to curing ocular diseases.

Yes, perhaps being blind could be seen (pardon the pun) as something which is much more detrimental to one's quality of life comparably, but I could easily argue otherwise. Balding, while 'cosmetic' by definition, is necessarily traumatic in many ways itself, in some cases drastically reducing one's quality of life.

[Sogeking]

Well it would certainly be great to have a fail safe if your heart stops working correctly.
I too am interested in quality of life of those people who had their hearts artifically suplemented/changed?

[clandestine]

Human stem cells 'help blind rats'

"Stem cells taken from the back of a human eye have restored some vision to blind rats"

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-17258098

[greatjob!]

Comparing baldness to blindness is a pretty absurd! Going bald sucks but come on...

[NotBelievingIt]

Comparing baldness to blindness is a pretty absurd! Going bald sucks but come on...

The point is that stem cell therapies are on the verge of radically changing how we perceive what we originally thought was unfixable issues.

If we can rebuild heart tissue, lung tissue, skin, eyes functionality...why is hair loss any different? Its clearly a "fault" in certain hairs...it should be relatively easy to figure out, at a stem cell level, why a hair millimeters away from another is completely different in its ability to survive DHT strangulation.

[greatjob!]

The point is that stem cell therapies are on the verge of radically changing how we perceive what we originally thought was unfixable issues.

If we can rebuild heart tissue, lung tissue, skin, eyes functionality...why is hair loss any different? Its clearly a "fault" in certain hairs...it should be relatively easy to figure out, at a stem cell level, why a hair millimeters away from another is completely different in its ability to survive DHT strangulation.

I know what the point was. I'm a biochemistry student I understand what's going on with regenerative medicine and the possibilities it brings for mpb, what I was referring to was the comment that baldness is as devastating as blindness. That is definitely absurd.

[clandestine]

My point remains; they are both necessarily detrimental to one's quality of life. They are similar in this respect.

In different ways, and to different extents, yes. Well, this is obvious, though.

But we've digressed. The point of this thread was, as per the first part of your post, to point out and discuss potential for regenerative medicine and stem cells today, and into the future.