An inquiry deflates hopes for heart stem cells

It's been believed by some that the heart has regenerative capabilities. But some of the major research underlying that idea now has been largely quashed.

In a statement yesterday, Harvard Medical School and Brigham and Women’s Hospital said papers from the lab of Dr. Piero Anversa included falsified data; they recommended 31 papers in all be retracted.

Dr. Piero Anversa, a cardiac stem cell researcher, gained a great deal of prestige in his field for showing that certain cells — dubbed “c-kit cells” — could recreate heart tissue. But when researchers tried to reproduce the work, they failed, over and over again. Now we may know why.

“There are no stem cells in the heart,” one researcher told STAT. “Quit trying to publish those results.”