Follow Hong Kong Immigration, follow Hong Kong Life: Due to a lack of organ donations and the fact that cell therapy is not yet mature, heart disease has become the third leading cause of death in Hong Kong. A research team led by the University of Hong Kong has developed several patented technologies that can extract 80 cardiomyocytes from a single pluripotent stem cell. This is expected to be ready for clinical application within 5 years, helping patients repair necrotic cardiomyocytes. The team has also successfully created the world's first human artificial heart, about the size of a fingertip, for drug testing. They have already tested 30 to 50 toxic drugs and hope to test 3,000 or more drugs next year.
According to a report by Hong Kong's Ta Kung Pao, the research team led by the University of Hong Kong was awarded 60 million HKD in the first round of the "Theme-based Research Scheme" by the Hong Kong Research Grants Council in the 2011/12 academic year to study the replication of human hearts using pluripotent stem cells. Ronald Li, Director of the Stem Cell and Regenerative Medicine Consortium at the University of Hong Kong, pointed out that cardiomyocytes form a type of muscle tissue, and cardiomyocytes that die due to aging or disease cannot regenerate. A major focus of the team's research is to extract a large number of cardiomyocytes using pluripotent stem cells and then translate this research into clinical applications to assist heart disease patients in repairing necrotic cardiomyocytes.
Ronald Li noted that 10 years ago, 1,000 pluripotent stem cells could only produce 3 cardiomyocytes, and even with the most advanced technology today, it takes 2 pluripotent stem cells to produce one cardiomyocyte, which is inefficient. The team has now developed several patented technologies to extract 80 cardiomyocytes from a single pluripotent stem cell. The team has also successfully created the world's first human artificial heart, about the size of a fingertip. However, Ronald Li estimates that it will take about 5 years to translate cardiomyocytes into clinical applications to help patients repair necrotic cardiomyocytes.
Currently, although the human artificial heart created by the team cannot be directly transplanted into humans, it can be used for drug testing. Ronald Li stated that using an artificial heart with human cells for drug testing can effectively test whether drugs are toxic to the human heart, while also allowing for the use of test results to improve drug efficacy. Furthermore, since pluripotent stem cells can be extracted from a person's skin or blood cells and then differentiated into cardiomyocytes, drug testing is expected to develop in a personalized direction. The team has already tested 30 to 50 toxic drugs and hopes to conduct a series of drug tests next year, testing 200, 1,000, and even 3,000 drugs.
