Stem cells hidden between mature heart cells. Photo credit: New Scientist.

Now this is something I never would have expected. New Scientist is reporting that researchers led by Piero Anversa at New York Medical College discovered in 2003 that mature heart muscle cells were hiding a surprise -- stem cells. In the subsequent time, Dr. Anversa along with her colleague Annarosa Leri, have shown that the stem cells are likely to originate in the heart and have conducted several experiments that show great promise that cardiac stem cells may be used to repair damaged heart tissue.

Dr. Leri says, “We think that these are the cells that normally provide new heart tissue and will most likely be better suited for repair of diseased hearts.”

While the New Scientist article is brief, the impression given is that this is still work that's on the edge and much needs to be done. Even if this line of research doesn't pan out though, I would expect that there is much to be learned here about the heart, and perhaps more generally the whole body from this research. 

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