Cardiac Regeneration using Stem Cells PDF

Preface

This book presents the current status and future perspective of cardiac regeneration using pluripotent stem cells. Human induced pluripotent stem (iPS) cells were fi rst reported in 2007, a development that came as a surprise to researchers and patients. iPS cells resemble embryonic stem cells in terms of proliferation ability and multipotency, but can be generated from somatic cells by introducing stem cell specifi c transcription factors. iPS cells have identical genomic information with donor somatic cells which can be obtained from the patients. Thus iPS cells overcome obstacles such as ethical and immunological problems and thereby are a boon for cardiac regeneration therapy. Since 2007 researchers have felt motivated to carry out cardiac regeneration using pluripotent stem cells. To achieve cardiac regeneration using iPS cells, research workers have to understand many aspects of iPS cells, such as iPS cell generation methods, cardiomyocyte differentiation protocols, cardiomyocyte characterization methods, and tissue engineering and so on. This book is written by many top researchers with brand-new data in these fi elds and will certainly help readers to get a comprehensive picture of iPS cells in cardiac regeneration.