A cutting-edge method developed at the University of Michigan Center for Arrhythmia Research successfully uses stem cells to create heart cells capable of mimicking¹ the heart's crucial squeezing action. The cells displayed activity similar to most people's resting heart rate. At 60 beats per minute, the rhythmic² electrical impulse transmission of the engineered cells in the U-M study is 10 times faster than in most other reported stem cell studies.

An image of the electrically stimulated³ cardiac（心脏的） cells is displayed on the cover of the current issue of Circulation Research, a publication of the American Heart Association.

For those suffering from common, but deadly heart diseases, stem cell biology represents a new medical frontier.

The U-M team of researchers is using stem cells in hopes of helping⁴ the 2.5 million people with an arrhythmia, an irregularity in the heart's electrical impulses that can impair⁵ the heart's ability to pump blood.

"To date, the majority of studies using induced pluripotent stem cell-derived cardiac muscle cells have focused on single cell functional⁶ analysis," says senior author Todd J. Herron, Ph.D., an assistant research professor in the Departments of Internal Medicine and Molecular⁷ & Integrative Physiology⁸ at the U-M.

"For potential stem cell-based cardiac regeneration therapies for heart disease, however, it is critical to develop multi-cellular tissue like constructs that beat as a single unit," says Herron.

Their objective, working with researchers at the University of Oxford⁹, Imperial College and University of Wisconsin, included developing a bioengineering approach, using stem cells generated from skin biopsies, which can be used to create large numbers of cardiac muscle cells that can transmit uniform electrical impulses and function as a unit.

Furthermore, the team designed a fluorescent¹⁰ imaging platform using light emitting diode (LED) illumination to measure the electrical activity of the cells.

"Action potential and calcium¹¹ wave impulse propogation trigger each normal heart beat, so it is imperative¹²（必要的） to record each parameter¹³ in bioengineered human cardiac patches," Herron says.