How Stem Cell Research Is Curing Heart Defects (Interview w/ Cenk Uygur)

When we hear the term “Stem Cell Research”, we automatically think of controversy, and the conflict between religious groups and medical researchers that stole headlines in the lead up to the 2000 election. Today, stem cell research has progressed beyond using cells from embryos and is now an essential part of medical research – and potentially treatment – in adults.

Watch the first video in this series where Cenk interviews Praveen Singh and Jayde Lovell:

Stem Cell Research: At TYT It's Personal (Cenk Uygur Interview w/ Praveen Singh and Jayde Lovell)

Just one frontier for stem cell research is finding a cure for acute heart conditions. Around 280,000 people die every year from heart attacks, and many of those people will die with no warning and no prior history of heart disease. Research into the cause of these heart attacks is difficult – studying the genetic mutations that cause these heart attacks is all but impossible, as most carrying the mutation will never know they have it. But new stem cell technology allows doctors to use blood cells from an affected adult to grow both healthy and diseased tissue, giving scientists an opportunity to study the disease and trial potential cures.

In this incredible interview, TYT host Cenk Uygur speaks with three world-leading scientists about their groundbreaking international research, and their ‘hunt for the cause’ behind a family of heart conditions that continue to prove fatal for tens of thousands of Americans. They discuss the Nobel Prize-winning stem cell technology that allows scientists to grow heart tissue from blood cells, the creation of a “disease in a dish”, the rise of ‘precision medicine’, and the potential for genetic engineering technology to cure all gene-based illnesses and save millions of lives.

Interviewees:

Dr Todd Evans

(Professor of Cell and Developmental Biology in Surgery, Weill Cornell Medical College)

Dr Jim Cheung

(Assistant Professor of Medicine, Weill Cornell Medical College, Cornell University)

Dr Albano Meli

(Senior Research Associate, Inserm – the French National Institute of Health and Medical Research)

To learn more about the research and support the research study, go to www.PraveenNYC.com

Read more about the story via Weill Cornell Medical College / NYPresbyterian Hospital

More detailed scientific explanation behind the research here

Learn about heart conditions via the American Heart Association

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GLOSSARY

- Cardiologist: A heart doctor

- Electrophysiologist: A doctor who specializes in electrical signals in the body, primarily abnormal heart beats

- Arrhythmia: Abnormal heart rhythm. Can be life-threatening.

- Myocardial infarction: Heart attack

- Cardiomyocytes: Heart muscle cells

- Cardiomyopathy: Weakened or abnormal heart

- Reggie Lewis: American professional basketball player for the NBA's Boston Celtics from 1987 to 1993. Died suddenly of ‘hypertrophic cardiomyopathy’.

- Hypertrophic cardiomyopathy: Unusual thickening of the heart

- Erythroblast: An immature red blood cell

- IPS cells / IPSCs: “Induced pluripotent stem cells”, adult cells that have been turned into stem cells.

- Mutation: A change in our DNA sequence. Often has no impact on the adult organism.

- Pemphigus vulgaris: Autoimmune disorder which can cause blisters.

- Precision medicine: A treatment approach targeting an individual’s genetics and environment, rather than just the disease.

- Calcium ryanodine receptor (RyRs): a channel in the cells to transport charged calcium and therefore allows electrical signals to pass.

- Allele: A different form of a gene

- NIH: National Institutes of Health

- Embryogenesis: How an embryo forms and develops.

- Germ line: Sex cells (Eggs and sperm)

- Oocytes: Human egg cell

- Hematopoietic stem cells: Cells that produce new blood cells.

- Thalassemia: An inherited (genetic) blood disorder.

Learn more about the turning adult cells into stem cells (discovered by Shinya Yamanaka and his colleagues, winner of the 2012 Nobel Prize)

Learn more about curing disease with gene-editing technology

Learn more about Personalized Medicine and Precision Medicine