New Scientist: How to Mend a Broken Heart

Mitosis is the natural healer of body tissues. Whenever we suffer an injury to our skin or even internal lesions, mitosis will occur and replace the damaged cells with new exactly identical ones. The only drawback of this method is that it takes a great amount to occur by itself. This is why we apply oxygenated water to our wounds. To speed up this process. New studies have shown that some fish and amphibians have extraordinary regenerative abilities but only mammal embryos possess such a skill. The heart in particular was analyzed.

The results were not what was expected. One day old mice had a small chunk of the heart removed for this analysis. The rest of the organ was then removed 21 days later and it was observed that the heart tissue that was missing was completely regenerated. However the same phenomenon did not occur for fully grown mice. This suggests that the human baby also possess such regenerative abilities. If these abilities could be transferred to a an adult it would actually mean the end of any and all external lesions and wounds. That is the dream.


http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn20168-newborn-mice-can-mend-a-broken-heart.html