Coronary Vascular Regeneration Using Proepicardial Derived Progenitor Cells

Project Description Narrative:

Heart disease is the number-one killer of adults in the United States. Approximately 500,000 new cases of heart disease are reported each year, and 250,000 deaths are reported annually. In most cases, heart disease is caused by interruption of the heart’s blood supply, which causes cardiomyocyte death. Since adult cardiomyocytes do not proliferate to restore damaged myocardium, cardiac injury is currently largely irreversible; and therefore, the injured myocardium has been a prime candidate for stem cell therapy.

This project will attempt to generate a procedure to treat ischemic heart disease by functionally identifying a population of progenitor stem cells that can be directly used to ameliorate ischemic heart disease by reconstitution of diseased coronary vasculature.