Human cardiac master stem cells identified
What is truly groundbreaking about the study, and has enormous implications in terms of the future treatment of heart disease, Kenneth Chien says, is that “the study provides a new way of understanding heart disease at it appears in children and in adults."
July 1, 2009
Harvard Stem Cell Institute researchers at Massachusetts General Hospital have identified the earliest master human heart stem cell from human embryonic stem cells - ISL1+ progenitors - that give rise to a family of cells that form the essential portions of the human heart.
The discovery, by a group led by Kenneth Chien, director of both HSCI's Cardiovascular Disease Program and the MGH Cardiovascular Research Center, is particularly important because the cells were found in regions of the heart known as hot spots for congenital heart disease.
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