Researchers at the Institute of Biomedical Engineering at the University of Toronto have demonstrated a new way to monitor transplanted stem-cell-derived heart cells using magnetic resonance imaging (MRI). The method allows researchers to visualize where transplanted cells survive over time, which could help scientists evaluate and improve emerging stem cell therapies for heart damage such as those caused by heart attacks. Professor Hai-Ling Margaret Cheng and her team have shown that an imaging platform known as “bright ferritin MRI” can be used to track transplanted human pluripotent stem-cell-derived cardiomyocytes in the hearts of rats for up to eight weeks. The findings are published in Magnetic Resonance in Medicine.
This article was originally published on MedicalXpress.com
