1,721,297 research outputs found

    Translating Myocardial Remuscularization

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    Myocardial remuscularization can be achieved by the implantation of cardiomyocyte-containing grafts. Critical steps toward clinical translation of the first generation cardiac remuscularization therapies include the choice of animal models with high predictive validity for therapeutic outcome in clinical trials

    Individualized stem cell therapy

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    Stem cells are attributed with having a great potential in regenerative medicine. Pluripotent stem cells are particularly interesting because they can be multiplied indefinitely and also differentiated under defined conditions. Currently, cardiomyocytes can be differentiated very effectively from pluripotent stem cells, making the former an attractive starting material for cardiac disease modeling in a culture dish (patient in a dish) and cell based-therapy in heart failure. The rapid biotechnological advances made in recent years now enable these concepts to be translated into clinical applications

    Heart tissue from embryonic stem cells

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    Embryonic stem cells can give rise to all somatic cells, making them an attractive cell source for tissue engineering applications. The propensity of cells to form tissue-like structures in a culture dish has been well documented. We and others made use of this intrinsic property to generate bioartificial heart muscle. First proof-of-concept studies involved immature heart cells mainly from fetal chicken, neonatal rats and mice. They eventually provided evidence that force-generating heart muscle can be engineered in vitro. Recently, the focus shifted to the application of stem cells to eventually enable the generation of human heart muscle and reach following long-term goals: (1) development of a simplified in vitro model of heart muscle development; (2) generation of a human test-bed for drug screening and development; (3) allocation of surrogate heart tissue to myocardial repair applications. This overview will provide the background for cell-based myocardial repair, introduce the main myocardial tissue engineering concepts, discuss the use of embryonic and non-embryonic stem cells, and lays out the potential direct and indirect therapeutic use of human tissue engineered myocardium
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