Biomedical engineers at Duke University have grown the first functioning human skeletal muscle from human induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs). (Pluripotent stem cells are important in regenerative medicine because they can generate any type of cell in the body and can propagate indefinitely; the induced version can be generated from adult cells instead of embryos.)
In the study, the researchers started with human induced pluripotent stem cells. These are cells taken from adult non-muscle tissues, such as skin or blood, and reprogrammed to revert to a primordial state... The stem cell method is also capable of growing many more cells from a smaller starting batch than the previous biopsy method.
“With this technique, we can just take a small sample of non-muscle tissue, like skin or blood, revert the obtained cells to a pluripotent state, and eventually grow an endless amount of functioning muscle fibers to test,” said Bursac.
http://www.kurzweilai.net/how-to-grow-functioning-human-muscles-from-stem-cells
We are now well on our way to being able to produce the Ameglian Major Cow. We'll meet the meat at Milliway's.
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