Using skin to save the heart

(Center for iPS Cell Research and Application - Kyoto University) Cell therapies for heart ailments involve transplanting over a billion heart cells to the patient's heart. Many of these cells fail to engraft, however, compromising the benefits. One reason for the poor engraftment is that normally the heart cell population is a mixture of cells with different maturation. Researchers have identified an ideal maturation stage that enhances engraftment and may reduce the number of cells required fo...