This an interesting concept, but it seems to hinge on the presence of a cadaver. About three years ago there was a research effort that grew a human ear on the back of a mouse. Using the donor cells, the ear was essentially a clone of the donor’s ear. It would have been genetically a match to the donor, not the mouse.
It would seem to me that something along these lines would be more in line with what needs to take place. And it could be done without a cadaver.
Perhaps I’m not understanding the situation clearly, because this could actually could be what is taking place in the new study. I sure would like to get away from the human cadaver model if possible, and this new study doesn’t seem to be consistant with a genetic match with the donor, but I can’t be certain.
A person could get a temporary mechanical heart while they harvest and stimulate the growth of that person's own stem cells to proliferate prior to reinjection. Anti-rejection drugs, immunosuppressants, wouldn't be needed, IMHO.
It does require the use of a cadaver, but the thing is, this is not the same thing as regrowing an ear, a nose, or even a finger. People that are awaiting heart transplants are not in a position to be choosy about possible unrecognized viruses (e.g., “HepF”). Speaking as a scientist, this is an amazing advance, and even more so because it is so incredibly simple. The researchers basically “dissolved” the heart using a detergent (you can actually find this detergent in a lot of shampoos - look for sodium dodecyl sulfate). That left a scaffold of the outer protein shell of the heart - things like the protein that makes up cartilage. The stem cells used this scaffold to grow a new heart.
The beauty of this study is that, yes, a cadaver is required, but it was neonatal mouse heart cells that were used to regrow the heart. Thus, the heart is genetically matched to the donor of the cells. In this case, a mouse fetus donated the cells, but we already know how to make cardiac stem cells from bone marrow stem cells. (However, and this is just my opinion here, I think that embryonic stem cells will be more useful in applications such as these. And this will require the pro-life version of ESCs, such as those that came out of Shinya Yamanaka’s lab, as ordinary stem cells will not be genetically matched to the donor, especially in the case of men requiring new hearts).