Scientists turn skin cells into beating heart muscle

Scientists have for the first time succeeded in taking skin cells from patients with heart failure and transforming them into healthy, beating heart tissue that could one day be used to treat the condition.The researchers, based in Haifa, Israel, said there were still many years of testing and refining ahead. But the results meant they might eventually be able to reprogram patients cells to repair their own damaged hearts.We were able to demonstrate the ability to take skin cells from very sick patients with significant heart failure, heart disease, and show that cells, skin cells from these patients can be eventually differentiated to become healthy heart cells in the dish. So one can take skin cells from a very sick individual, who has very sick heart cells, to reprogram them to become induced pluripotent stem cells and then make heart cells that are healthy, that are young and resemble heart cells at the day that the patient was born, said Lior Gepstein from the Technion-Israel Institute of Technology, who led the work.The researchers, whose study was published in the European Heart Journal on Wednesday, said clinical trials of the technique could begin within 10 years.These cells can be transplanted into hearts of animals, survive and function in synchrony with existing heart tissue. This study open the road, hopefully, to future clinical trials, in a decade or so, that will test the ability of such heart cells to repair the patients own heart, Gepstein said.