Year 5

The aim of this research proposal was to develop cardiac tissue for heart repair. Aim 1 focused on the generation of cardiac cells from stem cells. Aim 2 looks at biomaterials and patterning for building the complex multicellular integrated tissue. Aim 3 examined the ability of these tissues to repair a damaged heart. During this last year of the grant, we have successfully generate large numbers of cardiac cells from stem cells and have generated “sheets” of these cardiac cells. The animal studies on the cell injections and material injection show some success in the repair of heart tissue, but expect that the fully integrated heart tissue, once implanted, will be superior to cells or material alone.