Researchers transform skin cells of HF patients into heart-muscle cells.

Bloomberg BusinessWeek (5/23, Hallam) reports, "Israeli scientists for the first time succeeded in transforming the skin cells of heart-failure patients into healthy heart-muscle cells, suggesting that it may be possible to repair the organ with a person's own tissue." Skin "cells from two men with the disease, once genetically reprogrammed, were able to blend in with healthy heart tissue in rats, scientists from the Technion-Israel Institute of Technology and Rambam Medical Center in Haifa, wrote today in the European Heart Journal, a publication of the European Society of Cardiology." However, "testing the cells in human hearts may be as long as a decade away, as scientists hone the technique in animal studies, they said."

        MedPage Today (5/23, Kaiser) reports that the researchers "took special precaution to diminish the risk of these cells turning cancerous. They left out a transcription factor called c-Myc, which is known as a cancer-causing gene in stem cell creation." MedPage Today added, "The viral vector also can be cancer-inducing, so the researchers devised a method for removing the virus after it delivered the genes necessary for reprogramming."