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Master Stem Cells Promises Cardiac Tissue Breakthrough

Researchers from the Harvard University developed both cardiac and smooth muscle, as well as "pacemaker" cardiac cells, after extensive lab-analysis on mice.

Dr. Kenneth R. Chien of the Harvard Stem Cell Institute: "This is the beginning of unlocking the scientific and therapeutic potential of human embryonic stem cells. It's the beginning of being able to harness the power of embryonic stem cells for generating specific tissues. We have no reason to believe that this can't be transposed into the human context."

The findings give hope that cardiac tissue could be produced from such embryonic stems cells in the near future.

The heart has several cell-types, but "what has not been clear is if all these different types of cells is due to the presence of a master cell that can decide what it wants to be when it grows up. We have discovered a single cell that can make that decision," Chien said. "Moreover, the single cell can be cloned and expanded into the three different cell types," Dr. Kenneth R. Chien of the Harvard Stem Cell Institute added.

"We should start isolating the best cell type. Embryonic stem cells offer this potential, since these are the cells that actually form the heart, as opposed to adult stem cells, for which that is not their normal function."

Although encouraging, study results are not regarded as applicable for humans by other experts like Atsushi Asakura, assistant professor at the University of Minnesota Medical School's Stem Cell Institute:

"The finding of cardiac stem cells in adult hearts cannot be applied for the clinical implications, since we cannot [yet] directly isolate cardiac stem cells from patient's or donor's heart tissue for therapeutic stem cell transplantation. One problem is that cells from outside one's own body face problems of rejection in the same way organ transplants do. However, it is possible that one can induce proliferation of [the patient's] cardiac stem cells in patient's heart by treatment with growth factors. In addition, we may be able to induce cardiac stem cell differentiation from other stem cells, including adult stem cells and embryonic stem cells."