I wonder what the advantage of using this approach over the also-proven technique of using bone marrow-obtained stem cells to repair cardiac damage.
I’m not sure if the ones from bone marrow are also induced plurpotent (with all the resultant cancer risks) as these skin ones are, but it would make horse-sense to me that bone-marrow would be better, since it is more closely related (my assumption) to heart tissue.
Bone marrow may possess some magic factor that would produce better stem cell material but on the surface anyway it doesn’t sound logical. Stem cell material obeys whatever the surrounding DNA tells it to do and becomes whatever that DNA tells it to become. Using skins cells would make it much easier on the patient and it would still have the patient’s DNA and likewise no problems with rejection.