Researcher by robot

Making new cardiac muscle cells (cardiomyocytes).

This can be either by stimulating the small number of cells which naturally regenerate the adult heart or by driving stem cells made outside the heart to become cardiomyocytes.   The external stem cells can come from human embryonic stem cell lines or can be made by reprogramming ordinary cells, such as skin, to become stem cells.  These stem cells are then driven to become cardiomyocytes by mimicking natural development processes.  They produce beating muscle layers in the culture dish and can be engineered into 3D muscle strips.