Self-healing Hearts

Injecting yourself with extracts from animal testicles and other wild potions won't stop you ageing, as some people thought in the 19th century. But little did they know that their fumblings would lead to modern cell therapies – the transplantation of healthy cells into diseased tissue to regenerate it. These fibroblast cells (in red, with nuclei in blue and energy-making centres in green) could one day help repair failing hearts. Fibroblasts act as a biological glue throughout the body by producing elastic fibres and collagen that connect tissues. In the heart, these cells maintain the structure of cardiac muscle, although too many of them can also cause the heart to lose its suppleness. Now researchers have found that the cells might themselves be coaxed into becoming heart muscle cells. And if proven true, they could in future help heart patients avoid transplants of failing valves or even hearts.

Written by Tristan Farrow

Tristan Farrow

Writer

British Science Association Media Fellow. He holds a degree in quantum physics from the University of Cambridge and a Research Fellowship in quantum effects in biology.

• Image by Dylan Burnette and Jennifer Lippincott-Schwartz
• Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development, National Institutes of Health
• Copyright held by National Institutes of Health
• Research published in Circulation Research, March 2014