
Scientists around the world have been trying to replace damaged heart tissue using lab-made heart-muscle cells, either injecting them into the heart or applying patches laced with the cells. But results to date have been underwhelming.
“If you make cardiomyocytes in a dish from pluripotent stem cells, they will engraft in the heart and form muscle,” says William Pu, MD, director of Basic and Translational Cardiovascular Research at Boston Children’s Hospital. “But the muscle doesn’t work very well because the myocytes are stuck in an immature stage.” …