Muscle Building Blog

By employing optogenetics, a new field that uses genetically altered cells to respond to light, and a tandem unit cell (TCU) strategy, researchers at Stony Brook University have demonstrated a way to control cell excitation and contraction in cardiac muscle cells, the details of which are published in the early online edition of Circulation: Arrhythmia Electrophysiology: “Stimulating Cardiac ...

By employing optogenetics, a new field that uses genetically altered cells to respond to light, researchers at Stony Brook University have demonstrated a way to control cell excitation and contraction in cardiac muscle cells.

By employing optogenetics, a new field that uses genetically altered cells to respond to light, researchers at Stony Brook University have demonstrated a way to control cell excitation and contraction in cardiac muscle cells.

Scientists have altered cardiac muscle cells to make them controllable with light. They were thus able to use directed light to cause conditions such as arrhythmia in genetically modified mice. The method opens up completely new possibilities for researching the development of such arrhythmias.

These days people usually don't die from a heart attack. But the damage to heart muscle is irreversible, and most patients eventually succumb to congestive heart failure, the most common cause of death in developed countries.Stem cells now offer hope for achieving what the body can't do: mending broken hearts. Engineers and physicians at the University of Washington have built a scaffold that ...