![\"Working](\"http:\/\/www.massarate.ma\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/01\/lab-grown-contracting-muscles-f.jpg\")
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A team of researchers out of Duke University recently announced<\/a> they\u2019ve grown human skeletal muscle in a dish. The muscle responds to electrical impulses, biochemical signals, and drugs just like muscle tissue in our bodies.<\/p>\n It\u2019s hoped that in the future such lab-grown tissues might serve as a way to test new drugs and study diseases outside the human body without risking a patient\u2019s health. They might also be used to provide more personalized therapies.<\/p>\n Bursac and Lauran Madden, a postdoctoral researcher in Bursac\u2019s laboratory, grew the muscle tissue by first adding \u201cmyogenic precursors,\u201d a kind of proto muscle cell, to a three-dimensional scaffolding and nutrient gel in a dish. As the cells matured, they lined up and formed working muscle fibers (shown here at the top of the page).\u201cWe can take a biopsy from each patient, grow many new muscles to use as test samples and experiment to see which drugs would work best for each person,\u201d said Nenad Bursac, associate professor of biomedical engineering at Duke and a lead researcher on the study.<\/p>\n Bursac\u2019s lab has been working on growing muscles in animals for some time. Last year they announced<\/a> they had produced similarly impressive lab-grown\u00a0muscles in mice. However, this is the first success the lab has had in functioning human muscle tissue.<\/p>\n \u201cWe have a lot of experience making bioartificial muscles from animal cells in the laboratory, and it still took us a year of adjusting variables like cell and gel density and optimizing the culture matrix and media to make this work with human muscle cells,” said Madden.<\/p>\n In tests, Madden found the tissue contracted when given a shock and the pathways for nerve activation were present and in working order. She also found\u00a0the tissue’s responses to various drugs matched those observed in humans.<\/p>\n