University Of East London Research Assures Of Repairing After Heart Attack

shows transplanted stem cells from the skeletal muscle can help repair damaged hearts after heart attacks.

The research, led by Dr Ruchaya, a senior lecturer in physiology in the School of Health, Sport and Bioscience, was published in Cells journal in December.

The study provides important insight into the use of a novel stem cell population as a cell therapy for the treatment of heart attacks.

As part of the research, Progenitor Interstitial Cells (PICs) harvested from the skeletal muscle were transplanted into the myocardial infarcted mouse heart and improved cardiac function.

PICs secreted an array of pro-survival and pro-reparative factors, which have a beneficial stimulatory effect on cardiac repair.


Dr Ruchaya said, “The study provides important insight into the use of PICs as a progenitor cell therapy for the treatment of heart attacks.”


“PICs can be easily sourced from skeletal muscle, and can undergo in vitro propagation with the prospect of generating large numbers of these cells to be used in cellular reparative therapies.”