Injecting embryo stem cells "straight up"—without changing their cell type first—has fixed damage in an animal model of heart attack.
Reporting in the Journal of Molecular and Cellular Cardiology, scientists led by UW-Madison stem cell researcher Timothy J. Kamp report that the stem cells, when transplanted into damaged mouse hearts, morph into functional forms of cells that compose a healthy heart.
The study is considered important because it means that blank-slate embryonic stem cells could be introduced directly to damaged heart tissue to repair heart muscle and blood vessels.
"Typically, when that heart muscle dies (as the result of heart attack), it is gone for good," says Kamp, a professor of medicine and physiology in the UW-Madison School of Medicine and Public Health.
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