Editorial: Exploring Future Cardiovascular Medicine: Heart Precursors Directed from Human Embryonic Stem Cells for Myocardium Regeneration

San Diego Regenerative Medicine Institute and Xcelthera announce Dr. Parsons’ Editorial, titled “Exploring Future Cardiovascular Medicine: Heart Precursors Directed from Human Embryonic Stem Cells for Myocardium Regeneration” (doi: 10.4172/cpo.1000e110), published in current issue of The International Open Access Journal of Cardiovascular Pharmacology.

Given the limited capacity of the heart muscle for self-repair after birth, transplantation of cardiomyocyte stem/precursor/progenitor cells holds enormous potential in cell replacement therapy for cardiac repair. However, the lack of a clinically-suitable human cardiomyocyte stem/precursor/progenitor cell source with adequate myocardium regenerative potential has been the major setback in regenerating the damaged human heart, either by endogenous cells or by cell-based transplantation or cardiac tissue engineering. Due to the prevalence of heart disease worldwide and acute shortage of donor organs or adequate human myocardial grafts, there is intense interest in developing human embryonic stem cell (hESC)-based therapy for heart disease and failure. However, realizing the developmental and therapeutic potential of hESC derivatives has been hindered by the inefficiency and instability of generating clinically-relevant functional cells from pluripotent cells through conventional uncontrollable and incomplete multi-lineage differentiation. In addition, undefined foreign or animal biological supplements and/or feeders that have typically been used for the isolation, expansion, and differentiation of hESCs may make direct use of such cell-specialized grafts in patients problematic. Recent technology breakthroughs in hESC research have overcome some major obstacles in bringing hESC therapy derivatives towards clinical applications, including establishing defined culture systems for derivation and maintenance of clinical-grade pluripotent hESCs and lineage-specific differentiation of pluripotent hESCs by small molecule induction. Such milestone advances and medical innovations in hESC research enable direct conversion of pluripotent hESCs into a large supply of homogeneous populations of clinical-grade hESC neuronal and heart cell therapy products for developing safe and effective stem cell therapies. Currently, these hESC neuronal and cardiomyocyte therapy derivatives are the only available human cell sources with adequate capacity to regenerate neurons and contractile heart muscles, vital for CNS and heart repair in the clinical setting. This novel small molecule direct induction approach renders a cascade of neural or cardiac lineage-specific progression directly from the pluripotent state of hESCs, providing much-needed in vitro model systems for investigating the genetic and epigenetic programs governing the human embryonic CNS or heart formation. Please read Dr. Parsons’ editorial at http://www.esciencecentral.org/journals/ArchiveCPO/currentissueCPO.php.