Article Impact Level: HIGH Data Quality: STRONG Summary of Nature, 1–9. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-024-08463-0 Dr. Ahmad-Fawad Jebran et al.
Points
- Researchers developed a tissue-engineered heart muscle implant from induced pluripotent stem cells to treat heart failure, successfully integrating it into heart tissue in rhesus macaques.
- The EHM allografts enhanced myocardial contractility and ejection fraction, demonstrating a dose-dependent improvement in local and global cardiac function.
- The grafts remained viable for over six months, showing vascularization and integration without causing arrhythmias or tumor growth.
- Based on these promising preclinical results, the world’s first clinical trial using EHM implants for heart failure treatment will launch in Germany.
- The study highlights the potential of stem cell-based therapies for cardiovascular diseases, offering a new avenue for treating severe heart failure.
Summary
In a breakthrough study, researchers developed a tissue-engineered heart muscle (EHM) implant derived from induced pluripotent stem cells to treat heart failure. The preclinical study in rhesus macaques focused on using epicardial EHM allografts to remuscularize the chronically failing heart. The EHM patches were constructed from 40 to 200 million cardiomyocytes and stromal cells. They were shown to integrate effectively into the heart tissue, improving heart wall contractility and ejection fraction, markers of heart function. The long-term retention of these grafts, confirmed through histopathology and gadolinium-based perfusion MRI, provided evidence for sustainable heart repair without triggering harmful side effects such as arrhythmias or tumor growth.
EHM grafts over the study’s duration showed a dose-dependent enhancement in heart function, with a significant increase in myocardial contractility. In vivo results from the rhesus macaque model demonstrated that the EHM allografts led to a noticeable improvement in the heart failure model’s local and global cardiac function. Notably, the engineered heart muscle grafts maintained retention over 6 months, with significant vascularization and cellular integration evidence. These findings pave the way for the clinical application of EHM patches in human patients with advanced heart failure, offering hope for a non-invasive, sustainable treatment for those with severely impaired cardiac function.
The success of this preclinical study has provided the foundational data for the approval of the world’s first clinical trial using tissue-engineered heart muscle implants. This clinical trial, set to begin at University Medical Center Göttingen and University Medical Center Schleswig-Holstein, will explore the potential of EHM therapy to repair the human heart, marking a significant step forward in regenerative medicine for heart failure. These results underscore the promising future of stem cell-based therapies for treating cardiovascular diseases.
Link to the article: https://www.nature.com/articles/s42003-025-07484-3
References Jebran, A.-F., Seidler, T., Tiburcy, M., Daskalaki, M., Kutschka, I., Fujita, B., Ensminger, S., Bremmer, F., Moussavi, A., Yang, H., Qin, X., Mißbach, S., Drummer, C., Baraki, H., Boretius, S., Hasenauer, C., Nette, T., Kowallick, J., Ritter, C. O., … Zimmermann, W.-H. (2025). Engineered heart muscle allografts for heart repair in primates and humans. Nature, 1–9. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-024-08463-0
