Why are stem stems being used for the heart?
Dr. Joshua Hare: The fundamental problem with heart attacks and heart failure is that the heart loses functioning muscle cells, and when you lose those functioning muscle cells, the heart fails in its ability to pump blood. Up until now, we’ve had no therapy that can replace those missing cells. The goal of stem cell therapyis to use another type of cell, whether it’s from our bone marrow or circulating in our blood is to replace those missing cells and rebuild the heart or restore the heart back to what it was originally. Some feel that embryonic stem cells might be candidates for this, but current approaches are using adult stem cells. Are stem cells the only way to rebuild heart muscle? It’s experimental, so at this stage, it’s the most promising approach that we have for rebuilding the heart. When you think about it, what we’ve been doing for the last 30, 40 years is for the very few people who have had what we call end stage heart disease, we do a complete organ transplant. We do
