New Study Advances Medicine Toward Regenerating the Human Heart, Combating the Nation’s No. 1 Killer

A recent study published in the journal Cell Stem Cell has revealed why cell transplants to treat heart attack patients can often cause fatal arrhythmias. However, the researchers also offered a solution – using cutting-edge gene editing to replace dead heart cells with new ones designed to reduce arrhythmias. In typical heart attacks, around a quarter of the heart’s 4 billion cells are lost, resulting in impaired pumping function that eventually leads to death. Cell transplants to replace dead tissue using immature cardiomyocytes have been pursued for some time, but this new approach goes further by editing genes in embryonic stem cells to produce adult heart muscle cells that do not trigger arrhythmias. While still in the testing phase, researchers hope that cell injections would be less invasive than patching and could be performed without open-heart surgery, but more animal testing and clinical trials will be necessary before it becomes available.