Stem Cell Therapy Regenerates Heart Muscle Damaged from Heart Attacks In Primates

Heart cells created from human stem cells successfully restored damaged heart cells in monkeys. This was published in Nature magazine on April 30th, and the scientist came to the conclusion that if it can work in monkeys, it could probably work in humans too. The main question before the experiment begun was if it was possible to create enough heart cells to remuscularize damaged hearts in a large animal whose heart size and physiology is similar to that of the human heart. The scientist induced a heart attack on these monkeys and injected them with 1 billion heart cells derived from human stem cells and put the monkeys on immunosuppressive therapy to prevent rejection of the transplanted human cells. On average the transplanted stem cells regenerated 40 percent of the damaged heart tissue over subsequent weeks.
          This new research is very interesting because if this same experiment can be duplicated in human, the possibilities are endless with what else stem cells can help cure. This approach with stem cells could be ready for clinical trials in four years. The only problem with stem cell therapy is where to get the stem cells from. There are a lot of ethical and moral dilemmas because the best stem cells come from a human fetus.

Scar Tissue Turned Into Heart Muscle Without Using Stem Cells

Scientists have recently found a way to turn scar tissue that forms on a heart after a heart attack into heart muscle, in a rat subject. This discovery eliminates the need for a stem cell transplant of the heart. The scientists found a way to use a molecule called microRNAs, molecules that serve as master regulators that control the activity of many genes, to activate the cardiac tissue conversion. This creates a simpler way for tissue regeneration. The microRNAs, in a specific combination, were delivered in fibroblasts. Fibroblasts are developed in the heart after a heart attack and impair the heart from pumping blood. The microRNA reprograms the fibroblasts to resemble the cardiomyocytes that make up the heart muscle. MicroRNA has many advantages over transplants of stem cells, such as the microRNA process eliminates the technical problems of surgery such as genetic alternations, and avoiding the ethical dilemma posed by stem cells. Even though this is a big step towards a better way to cure scar tissue in the heart, the procedure is still too risky to try in humans. This is just an early stage of trial, and it shows that the procedure is doable. This discovery has the potential to treat the twenty-three million people worldwide who suffer from heart failure and heart disease.