A big heart

Cell therapies in the clinic for heart failure draw from divergent sources of nonembryonic stem cells but have shown only minimal improvements in cardiac function. A University of Washington team thinks human embryonic stem cell-derived cardiomyocytes may do a better job and has used the cells to remuscularize infarcted monkey hearts.¹

Larger preclinical studies, using more consistent methods, will need to address the arrhythmia seen in the study and show conclusively that the cells improve cardiac function...