Technion Researchers Build 1st Stem Cell "Pacemaker"

In its Internet edition published today, prestigious journal “Nature Biotechnology” reports that researchers from the Technion - Israel Institute of Technology have built a biological pacemaker by transplanting cells with pacemaker properties. Together with his laboratory team, Prof. Lior Gepstein MD of the Bruce and Ruth Rappaport Institute of Medical Sciences at the Technion Faculty of Medicine created heart cells out of human fetal stem cells, which he implanted in a pig’s heart. The pig previously underwent treatment to artificially slow its heart rate. The implanted tissues partially corrected the resulting defective heart rate by in effect constituting a biological pacemaker.