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Researchers at UH explore use of fat cells as heart attack therapy
Date:10/27/2008

of which is in the treatment of heart attack patients.

With its own pH and temperature controls, he said, the device has great potential for studying the introduction of ADSCs into a cell culture of cardiomyocytes, or heart muscles.

"While several studies have reported therapeutic effects after injections of different types of stromal and stem cells, the common beneficial factor or factors remain unclear," Kleis said. "This is precisely what we would like to use the bioreactor to study to find out how the stromal cells work."

In recognition of the invention of the bioreactor, the space agency named Kleis this spring as the winner of its Patent Application Award, which carries a $500 purse issued under the NASA Space Act, a program that honors scientific and technical contributions that help to achieve the agency's aeronautical, technology and space goals.

While conducting research for her dissertation, Geffert-Moore used the bioreactor with ADSCs provided by collaborators at the Texas Heart Institute, Kleis said, and her results demonstrated reduced injury to the cardiac muscle. She deprived canine cardiomyocytes of oxygen for 24 hours, introduced the stromal cells and then cultured the combination of cells for another 24 hours under normal oxygen levels.

"It is this re-oxygenation phase that normally does damage to the cardiomyocytes. But, with the stromal cells present we see a reduction in cell damage," Kleis explained. "The cardiomyocytes not treated with ADSCs showed apoptosis programmed cell death at 15 percent; whereas, the ones that were co-cultured showed it at 3 percent."

Kleis said his team is planning additional studies to identify more precisely the mechanisms involved in reducing cell death using the ADSCs.

"What we want to do from here is to identify the growth factors present in the co-culture that are not present or at the same levels in the normal culture," he said. "We can t
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Contact: Angela Hopp
ahopp@uh.edu
713-743-8153
University of Houston
Source:Eurekalert  

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Researchers at UH explore use of fat cells as heart attack therapy
Researchers at UH explore use of fat cells as heart attack therapy