«Discovery of a gene that could convert human embryonic stem cells
into myocardial cells would be golden,» said Didier Stainier, PhD, UCSF assistant professor of biochemistry and biophysics, the senior author of the UCSF study and a pioneer in the study of heart development in the transparent zebrafish embryo.
Two weeks after the experimental
myocardial infarctions, the Seattle researchers injected 1 billion heart muscle
cells derived from human embryonic stem
cells, called human embryonic stem
cell - derived cardiomyocytes,
into the infarcted muscle.