From the AP.  Carol I was thinking about you when I read this.

A clinical trial to test the safety of treating heart attack damage
with stem cells is about to get underway, after a study showed that
the therapy helped in pigs.

Two patients have been enrolled so far at Johns Hopkins Hospital in
Baltimore, and a total of 48 are expected to take part across the
country, said Joshua M. Hare, who is leading the study.

 
The process uses adult stem cells taken from bone marrow. These
mesenchymal cells have been shown to give rise to a variety of cell
types. Although they do not have the potential to develop into as many
cell types as embryonic stem cells, using them avoids the controversy
over taking cells from a human embryo.

In tests in pigs, stem cells from one pig's bone marrow were injected
into another animal's damaged heart. After two months, the stem cells
had helped restore heart function and repaired damaged heart muscle by
50 to 75 percent.

Those results are reported in today's issue of the Proceedings of the
National Academy of Sciences.

The planned tests are a Phase I trial, meaning the goal is to ensure
that the procedure is safe in humans.

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