by Alexa Erickson, Collective Evolution
According to the Organ Procurement and Transplantation Network, every ten minutes, someone is added to the national transplant waiting list. OPTN also reports that 22 people die each day waiting for a transplant.
With the supply of organs available for transplantation already far smaller than the demand, the need for technologies to step in is imperative.
Scientists have now made a major step forward in the goal of growing replacement organs, having identified a protein called Meox1 found in stem cells. The protein drives muscle growth.
The team of researchers, from Monash University in Australia, found the link studying zebrafish. Zebrafish are native to Southeast Asia, and are important and widely used vertebrate as a model organism in scientific research.
Like humans, zebrafish have two eyes, a mouth, brain, muscles, blood, bones, teeth, as well as a kidney and heart, among other of the same organs. Zebrafish also contain 70 percent human genes. Such closeness is incredibly hopeful given the results of the study.