Newsroom

New insight into heart muscle development


November 1, 2010


Dr. Lynn Megeney and his team published a paper showing that a protein called Wnt11 promotes the development of heart muscle stem cells by activating molecular pathways that have traditionally been associated with programmed cell death. The paper, published in Molecular and Cellular Biology, comes on the heels of several other papers by Dr. Megeney's group showing that cell death pathways have alternative roles in stem cells. The work could have important implications for the development of stem cell therapies for a variety of diseases.

Dr. Megeney is a Senior Scientist at the Ottawa Hospital Research Institute (Regenerative Medicine Program, Sprott Centre for Stem Cell Research) and an Associate Professor at the University of Ottawa (Faculty of Medicine).