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In a compact lab space at Stanford University, Oscar Abilez, MD, trains a microscope on a small collection of cells in a petri dish. A video recorder projects what the microscope sees on a nearby monitor. The cells in the dish pulse rhythmically, about once a second. The cells are cardiomyocytes, which drive the force-producing and pacemaker functions of the human heart. They are programmed to pulse. They will beat this way until they die.
Abilez holds up a finger as if to say, "Wait," and reaches for a small lever hidden behind the microscope. With the same finger, he flips the lever up. A pale, bluelight floods the petri dish. Abilez flicks the light off and then on; first fast and then slow. Each time his finger goes up, the heart cells contract in concert with the light.
In a paper to be published Sept. 21 in the Biophysical Journal, lead author Abilez, a postdoctoral scholar and PhD candidate in bioengineering, and a multidisciplinary team from Stanford describe how they have for the first time engineered human heart cells that can be paced with light using a technology called optogenetics.
In the near term, say the researchers, the advance will provide new insight intoheart function. In the long term, however, the development could lead to an era of novel, light-based pacemakers and genetically matched tissue patches that replace muscle damaged by a heart attack.
Abilez holds up a finger as if to say, "Wait," and reaches for a small lever hidden behind the microscope. With the same finger, he flips the lever up. A pale, bluelight floods the petri dish. Abilez flicks the light off and then on; first fast and then slow. Each time his finger goes up, the heart cells contract in concert with the light.
In a paper to be published Sept. 21 in the Biophysical Journal, lead author Abilez, a postdoctoral scholar and PhD candidate in bioengineering, and a multidisciplinary team from Stanford describe how they have for the first time engineered human heart cells that can be paced with light using a technology called optogenetics.
In the near term, say the researchers, the advance will provide new insight intoheart function. In the long term, however, the development could lead to an era of novel, light-based pacemakers and genetically matched tissue patches that replace muscle damaged by a heart attack.
