How to fix a broken heart?

Previous / Next   2009-07-06 22:20:41

Clues about how human hearts form hint at routes to cell-based therapies.

Heart disease kills more people than any other condition, yet cell therapies for it remain frustratingly elusive. Kenneth Chien of the Massachusetts General Hospital, in Boston, and his colleagues report a finding that could move this treatment closer to reality: human 'progenitor' cells that generate various types of heart tissue as they develop.

Chien's work remains a long way from the clinic, however, and clinical trials of other cell types for heart ailments have yielded mixed results. "Even the most ardent advocates are calling the long-term benefit modest," says Christine Mummery, a stem-cell researcher at Leiden University in the Netherlands. That leaves open the question of what cell types, if any, could turn stem-cell research into reality for patients with heart disease.

 

http://www.nature.com/news/2009/090701/full/460018a.html


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