Healing the heart from within

While some scientists work toward repairing injured hearts with stem cells, others wonder if they can coax human hearts into fixing themselves. After all, some nonmammalian animals regenerate heart tissue (SN: 11/1/97, p. 280; http://sciencenews.org/sn_arc97/11_1_97/bob1.htm).

Challenging the dogma that human-heart cells don’t divide, a research group reported in the June 7 New England Journal of Medicine that such cells proliferate in people who have suffered a heart attack, albeit not enough to heal the organ (SN: 7/7/01, p.