Stem cell therapy for heart attack

We are rolling out our 2011 Annual Report stories throughout March. The full report will be posted online and available for download later this month.

Each year in our Annual Report we highlight some of the patients and scientists who came to speak to our governing board about the search for cures. This year one of our stories focuses on research by Eduardo Marbán, who is leading a CIRM disease team developing a therapy to help repair damage after a heart attack.

Marbán spoke to our governing board about a clinical trial using the patient’s own heart cells to repair the damaged heart. This trial is the precursor to the next generation research being funded by CIRM, which uses heart cells from a donor heart. (We blogged about his Dec. 8 talk here.)

Marbán brought with him Frank Lesikar, who had participated in Marban’s clinical trial after a heart attack had damaged his heart. From the annual report story:

I'm in better shape than I've been in in years," he says. Some months after his attack, he enrolled in a clinical trial, in which researchers harvested a bit of tissue from his heart, coaxed stem cells from the tissue to grow, and put the cells back into his heart again. The results? Lesikar’s heart is functioning better and the scar left from his heart attack appears to be reduced.

The study that helped Lesikar is one that led up to a $5 million disease team award from CIRM to fund the next generation therapy.

Read more about Lesikar’s story and about Marbán’s research in the annual report story posted online. This is the seventh annual report story we’ve posted. Here are the others:

• Research Progress: Locking out HIV
• Spotlights on Disease: Autism
• Research Progress: Mimicking the pancreas
• Spotlights on Disease: Sickle Cell Disease
• Stem cell Therapy for the Economy
• Spotlight on Disease: Neuromyelitis Optica

The full report will be available for download later this month.

A.A.