Source: University of Miami Miller School of Medicine
Date: August 3, 2009
Summary:
As the field of stem cell based therapies has progressed, there have been numerous questions about the exact way one of the most promising lines of adult stem cells works to repair damaged heart muscle. Although cells obtained from adult bone marrow are proving to be useful to treat heart disease, there has been a major controversy over whether they are true stem cells capable of forming new heart muscle.
Cardiologists at the University of Miami Miller School of Medicine have definitively shown that mesenchymal stem cells from bone marrow do in fact form new heart muscle and blood vessels, leading to major degrees of tissue repair in hearts damaged by a heart attack. Their findings have been published in the August 3 issue of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
