Stem Cells In the Heart
From News-Medical.net, a look at further discoveries in adult stem cell populations: "We have first demonstrated in humans that, as in the animal model, failing hearts still possess cells that show all the features of stem cells in vitro. Cardiac stem cells (CSC) are indeed able to proliferate giving rise to other stem cells (property named self-renewal); they can differentiate into all the cells composing the cardiac tissue, for example myocytes and endothelial cells, (property named multipotency)." The authors show that the stem cell populations in damaged hearts differ from their counterparts in healthy hearts. That doesn't tell us what is cause and what is effect, however. It does raise the possibility of existing stem cells being mobilized in some way rather than the use of transplanted stem cells (autologous or otherwise) for therapy.