ESC Congress 2004: Converting cells into heart muscle
Bone marrow derived stem cells can give rise to heart muscle cells. This plasticity concept - the ability of bone marrow cell to transdifferentiate into heart muscle cell - is supported by experimental and clinical data. Another possibility is to replace the missing function by causing transdifferentiation of existing cells. Transdifferentiation means converting one sort of cell, e.g. fibroblast, into another, e.g. muscle cell. There is real hope that we may be able to control this unique phenomenon to produce many heart cells to create a new heart muscle based on cells harvested from the patient himself.