Contact: Anna Gonski
anna.gonski@childrens.harvard.edu
617-355-6420
Children's Hospital Boston

Reversing Heart-Attack Damage

Caption: A two-drug approach -- overcoming a natural inhibitor of cell division and supplying a growth factor to spur blood-vessel growth -- markedly reduced scarring of rats' heart tissue after a simulated myocardial infarction and also reduced thinning of the left-ventricular wall. Image A shows a section of uninjured heart, B an injured heart that was untreated, and C an injured heart treated with FGF1 and a p38 MAP kinase inhibitor. Scar tissue is indicated in blue, and muscle tissue in red.

Credit: Courtesy Felix Engel, PhD, Children's Hospital Boston

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