Heart repair is moving beyond a single strategy. What if a patient’s own cells could help researchers understand heart disease, or new materials could help damaged heart tissue heal? In this program, UC San Diego researchers discuss how these possibilities are shaping the future of heart care.

Dr. Catriona Jamieson, director of the Sanford Stem Cell Institute, hosts a conversation with Dr. Ehtisham Mahmud, Dr. Eric Adler, Karen Christman, Ph.D., and set designer Robert Brill. Together, they bring perspectives from clinical medicine, laboratory research, and the arts.

Mahmud explains how connecting patient care, clinical trials, and research helps move discoveries toward patients. Adler focuses on inherited heart conditions, describing how researchers can reprogram skin cells into stem cells and then create beating heart cells to study disease and test treatments.

As Adler recalls, “I’m rounding on their hearts beating in a dish in my lab.”

Christman discusses injectable materials made from the heart’s extracellular matrix, the natural scaffolding surrounding cells. These materials are designed to encourage the body’s repair response and reduce inflammation and scar tissue after a heart attack. Early clinical findings are encouraging, although larger trials are needed.

Brill offers a different perspective through The Heart, a theatrical work about organ donation, grief, and the communities involved in care. Using music, movement, and the sound of a heartbeat, the production brings the human experience of heart disease to the stage.

Together, these perspectives show how science, medicine, and creativity can contribute to the future of heart care.

Watch: Stem Cells and the Future of Heart Care – Medicine Informing Novel Discoveries (MIND)

Explore more research and discoveries on UCTV’s Stem Cell Channel.