Cardiovascular diseases are one of the leading causes of mortality in India. One of the contributing factors in progression of heart failure is loss of cardiomyocytes after myocardial infarction, combined with the absence of endogenous repair mechanism. The injured myocardium is replaced with fibrous tissue, promoting the loss of ventricular function. Cardiomyocytes are specialized cells of the heart that are terminally differentiated and lose their ability to replicate after foetal development. Hence regeneration of damaged heart muscle is not seen to any appreciable degree. A potential novel therapeutic approach is to replace the dysfunctional or scarred tissue with cardiomyocytes differentiated from embryonic stem cells and/or mesenchymal stem cells.

Our project focuses on the differentiation of stem cells of embryonic and mesenchymal origin into cardiomyocytes and to characterize the resulting cardiomyocytes. We are investigating the various signalling pathways driving the embryonic stem cells and mesenchymal stem cells to cardiomyocyte lineage. Cardiomyocytes derived from mouse embryonic stem cells have been shown to survive, integrate, and rescue cardiac contractibility in infracted rodents. Thus, the derivation of cardiomyocytes on a large scale from hESCs would allow for testing the utility of cells in animal models and eventually in humans.