The World Today - Wednesday, 7 June , 2006 12:46:00
Reporter: Daniel Hoare
ELEANOR HALL: Scientists in Melbourne have revealed that they've been able to build complex living cells in an advance that foreshadows a future where whole human organs like hearts could be made-to-order.
Researchers at the Bernard O'Brien Institute of Microsurgery at Melbourne's St Vincent Hospital have for the first time grown three-dimensional human cells.
Previously, scientists had only been able to create two-dimensional constructions like skin.
Our reporter Daniel Hoare has been at St Vincent's Hospital and he filed this report.
DANIEL HOARE: Professor Wayne Morrison, from Melbourne's Bernard O'Brien Institute of Microsurgery has led the breakthrough.
He says it's a world first and predicts the discovery will ultimately lead to the creation of human organs, including parts of the heart, by using the patients' own stem cells.
Such a scenario, says Professor Morrison, would reduce the problem of immune rejection which is often associated with organ transplants.
The research is a collaboration between the University of Melbourne's Department of Surgery and the Bernard O'Brien Institute, which is based at Melbourne's St Vincent's Hospital.
Professor Morrison says the project is merely the starting point in demonstrating the possible developments in tissue engineering.
WAYNE MORRISON: This is really just an example of the potential of tissue engineering. This is growing tissues in the body. It involves combining the expertise of biologists and chemical engineers, particularly where we mix cells and scaffolds together and implant them in the body where they grow and mature and develop into specific tissues.
DANIEL HOARE: Lead researcher Wayne Morrison says the cells were grown in a specially designed patented chamber. And he says it's not just human heart tissue that's been grown as part of the project.
WAYNE MORRISON: We have developed a special chamber which is patented with the Bernard O'Brien logo and this essentially is an empty box into which we implant a blood vessel using microsurgery techniques.
And this is the link with the microsurgery, that we use microsurgery to create this environment and we mix cells inside this chamber and we let them grow according to the specific environment that we can create.
Now, currently we have been able to make breast tissue, fat, muscle, pancreas tissue that secretes insulin and we have also created thymus tissue, which may have an application in immunology.
DANIEL HOARE: Professor Morrison showed a video at today's announcement to demonstrate how beating heart tissue was created from adult stem cells.
He discussed the video in front of today's large audience.
WAYNE MORRISON: Some people ask the question: isn't that just the artery that's beating underneath it? Actually, the rate of the heart tissue is beating at a much slower pace than the artery.
There is an artery in it that keeps this alive, but the heart cells are actually beating at their own rhythm and they - as was stated in the video Jim Angus has been a collaborator in this with Pharmacology at Melbourne University - with cardiac drugs the pace of the heart can be changed and it responds to tension forces.
DANIEL HOARE: The Federal Treasurer Peter Costello was on hand to make today's announcement. Mr Costello has taken a major interest in the research, having approved a $300,000 grant on the spot, which has ultimately led to today's discovery.
The Treasurer was convinced by his old friend, Liberal Party heavyweight Ron Walker, who's the Chairman of Bernard O'Brien Institute, to grant the money for the project.
And in what seemed another attempt to demonstrate his human side as the Prime Minister in waiting, the Treasurer took the liberty of explaining why he'd taken an interest in the research.
PETER COSTELLO: So why is a Federal Treasurer interested in this work? First, my interest in the heart proves I have a heart.
ELEANOR HALL: Treasurer Peter Costello ending that report from Daniel Hoare in Melbourne.