British researchers grow heart tissue from stem cells

British medical researchers have grown human heart tissue from stem cells in a breakthrough reported Monday that offers a possible solution to a shortage of donors for heart transplants.

The Guardian newspaper said that if animal trials scheduled for later this year prove successful, replacement tissue could be used in transplants for heart disease patients within three years.

Researchers led by Magdi Yacoub, a professor of cardiac surgery at Imperial College London, have grown tissue from stem cells in bone marrow that works in the same way as the valves in human hearts, it said.

Read full story in Seed Magazine.