Regenerative medicine creates healthy heart muscle cells

Scientists working with stem cell therapy in a laboratory in Israel have managed to use skim cells from patients to create healthy heart muscle cells.

The team, led by Professor Lior Gepstein, succeeded for the first time in using cells taken from heart failure sufferers and reprogramming them to become new heart muscle tissue that is able to integrate with existing cells, although clinical trials are five to ten years away.

Writing in the online edition of the European Heart Journal, the specialists explained human-induced pluripotent stem cells could be used to repair damaged organs in the future in a way that does not carry a risk of rejection by patients' immune systems.

"We have shown that it's possible to take skin cells from an elderly patient with advanced heart failure and end up with his own beating cells in a laboratory dish," stated Professor Lior Gepstein.

Stem cell treatment is being provided to two patients in Scotland in order to trial a revolutionary therapy that could reverse corneal blindness.

The clinical study will see eye disease treated by Scottish scientists by transplanting stem cells grown from deceased donors onto patient' cornea, with Sylvia Paton from Edinburgh chosen as the first subject.