Following heart attacks, a handful of monkeys regained some of the pumping ability their hearts had lost after being given human embryonic stem cells, according to a study published Monday in Nature Biotechnology.
Scientists have tried for years to develop a stem cell treatment for heart disease caused by lack of blood flow, which contributed to more than 9.4 million deaths worldwide in 2016, according to the World Health Organization.
“We’re talking about the number one cause of death in the world [for humans],” said study author Dr. Charles Murry, director of the Institute for Stem Cell and Regenerative Medicine at the University of Washington. “And at the moment all of our treatments are … dancing around the root problem, which is that you don’t have enough muscle cells.”
Comments are closed.