WASHINGTON — Scientists have grown a piece of heart muscle — and then watched it beat — by using stem cells from a mouse embryo, a big step toward one day repairing damage from heart attacks.
Think of Dr. Kenneth Chien as a heart mechanic. “We’re making a heart part, and (eventually) we’re going to put the part in,” is how he describes the work by his team of Harvard and Massachusetts General Hospital researchers.
Lots of work remains before trying that dramatic an experiment in people. But regenerating damaged heart muscle is a holy grail in cardiac care.
Doctors today have lots of treatments to prevent a heart attack. But once one strikes, there’s no way to restore the heart muscle it kills. Gradually the weakened heart quits pumping properly, leading to heart failure.
Hence the focus on embryonic stem cells, master cells that can give rise to any tissue in the body. Until now, scientists haven’t known how to coax those cells into producing pure cardiac muscle.
The new research was published in today’s edition of the journal Science.
The team from the Harvard Stem Cell Institute and Mass General recently discovered a master heart stem-cell present in both human and mouse embryos and were able to extract the daughter cell whose only job is to grow the muscle fibers of the ventricle, or pumping chamber.
