Scientists Regenerate Damaged Hearts By Transforming Scar Tissue into Beating Heart Muscle

Scientists at the UCSF-affiliated Gladstone Institutes today are announcing a research breakthrough in mice that one day may help doctors restore hearts damaged by heart attacks by converting scar-forming cardiac cells into beating heart muscle.
Cardiovascular disease is the world’s leading cause of death. Annually in the United States alone, the nearly 1 million Americans who survive a heart attack are left with failing hearts that can no longer beat at full capacity.
“The damage from a heart attack is typically permanent because heart-muscle cells deprived of oxygen during the attack die and scar tissue forms,” said Srivastava, a UCSF professor who directs cardiovascular and stem cell research at Gladstone, an independent and nonprofit biomedical-research institution. “But our experiments in mice are a proof of concept that we can reprogram non-beating cells directly into fully functional, beating heart cells offering an innovative and less invasive way to restore heart function after a heart attack.”