Researchers at UT Southwestern Medical Center have for the first time used drug-treated blood stem cells to repair heart damage in an animal model, results that might point to methods for healing injuries from heart attacks or disease.

In the study, researchers screened about 147,000 molecules to find one that could transform human blood stem cells into a form resembling immature heart cells. When they implanted blood stem cells activated by this compound into injured rodent hearts, the human cells took root and improved the animals’ heart function.

“The clinical potential is enormous,” said Dr. Jay Schneider, assistant professor of internal medicine and senior author of the study, which appears online this week and in a future issue of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. … Continue Reading »