Cell-Based Therapy in Heart Failure

The concept of cell-based therapy in heart failure began with Dr. Ray Chiu from McGill University and Dr. Race Kao from Tennessee in 1992. Their article entitled Cell transplantation for myocardial repair: An experimental approach described the auto-transplantation of expanded skeletal satellite cells into the damaged myocardium of dogs [1]. Patches of muscle within the scar found on explanted hearts 6-8 weeks later provided a smoke signal suggesting that cell-based therapy may be possible for the treatment of heart failure. This article ignited the imaginations of researchers and changed the paradigm of how researchers thought about tissue and organ regeneration. It surely challenged the classical teaching and the regenerative limitations of terminally differentiated cells frequently found in biological systems.