Heart Inflammation

Cells taken from bone marrow are a common stem-cell therapy. (Dennis Kunkel Microscopy/SPL)

How stem-cell therapies mend broken hearts Common stem-cell therapies improve heart function — but not by becoming heart-muscle cells themselves. Instead, research in mice shows that they trigger immune cells called macrophages to repair connective tissue in damaged regions of the organ. Swapping the stem cells with an inflammation-inducing chemical — or even bits of dead cells — worked, too, indicating that inflammation set off by the immune system drives the repair mechanism. The findings could have significant implications for the future of stem-cell therapies in humans, a multibillion dollar industry. Nature | 4 min readReference: Nature paper