UCLA Cardiac Regeneration Research

New Capabilities

First heart tissue regeneration drug approved for clinical trials

Researchers just demonstrated they can regenerate heart muscle using reprogrammed stem cells—and for the first time, proved these patches work in a human patient. In January 2025, a 46-year-old woman with advanced heart failure received 10 patches containing 400 million stem cell-derived heart muscle cells. Three months later, when she received a transplant, examination of her original heart revealed the patches had survived, formed blood vessels, and integrated with her heart tissue. When your heart suffers a heart attack, scar tissue normally replaces dead muscle cells permanently. Adult human hearts renew less than 1% of their cells per year. This damage has been irreversible—until now.

Updated Jan 11