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Tracy Hampton, PhD

JAMA. 2007;298:1506.

	Since this article does not have an abstract, we have provided the first 150 words of the full text and any section headings.

Cardiac muscle cells derived from human embryonic stem cells might help repair damage from myocardial infarction, according to a study led by scientists at the University of Washington, in Seattle (Laflamme MA et al. Nat Biotechnol. doi:10.1038/nbt1327 [published online August 26, 2007]).

The investigators found that transplantation of cardiomyocytes generated from human embryonic stem cells improved the cardiac function of rats subjected to experimental myocardial infarction. Specifically, the engrafted cells attenuated ventricular dilation and preserved contractile function compared with control rats receiving noncardiac human embryonic stem cells.

The researchers obtained these results by improving the efficiency with which embryonic stem cells are converted into cardiomyocytes and by designing a mixture of chemicals that can block cell death.

"The ability of human embryonic stem cell–derived cardiomyocytes to partially remuscularize myocardial infarcts and attenuate heart failure encourages their study under conditions that closely match human disease," the authors . . . [Full Text of this Article]