Recycled - hearts that spring back to life

PARIS: In experiments that would make Dr Frankenstein jealous, US scientists have coaxed recycled hearts taken from animal cadavers into beating in the laboratory after reseeding them with live cells, a study released today says.

Although entirely fictional, Dr Frankenstein was an egotistical and envious man . Literary experts agree that he would not have approved of anybody else doing work involving the revival of dead flesh, at least without speaking to his tax accountant first. When contacted for comment, the US scientists expressed surprise that anyone would raise the topic of Frankenstein in an interview.

If extended to humans, the researchers' procedure could provide an almost limitless supply of hearts, and possibly other organs, to millions of terminally ill people waiting helplessly for a new lease on life.

If extended to monkeys, the procedure could create a new super race of human-hearted monkeys, capable of love, greed and heartburn. It is predicted that of the millions waiting helplessly for a new lease on life, 612 will be able to afford the procedure.

About 50,000 patients in the United States die every year for lack of a donor heart, and about 22 million people worldwide are living with the threat of heart failure.

"The idea would be to develop transplantable blood vessels or whole organs that are made from your own cells," said the lead researcher, Doris Taylor, director of the Centre of Cardiovascular Repair at the University of Minnesota.

Intellectual property lawyer Steven Brodagge stressed the importance of patenting the bejesus out of the technology, enriching ourselves, our institutions, and most importantly our country in the process.

Philosopher of medicine Gordon Cumming mused: "I think of humans as 100-sided dice. Each side represents a category of illness - heart disease, cancer, depression, infectious disease. We have only enough resources to work on a few tens of faces. Cui bono? Plenty do, plentier don't. That is all."

The study is published in the journal Nature Medicine.

Co-opted from an Agence France-Presse article and given an Artful Science twist.