Abstract
Heart disease still remains one of the leading causes of mortality in the developed world. Therefore, finding the right cure for cardiovascular disease remains a current umnet medical need. However, the recent advances in understanding the molecular basis of myocardial dysfunction, the characterization of novel properties of cardiac progenitors, the identification of the plasticity of several subpopulations of cardiac cells and the development of more efficient gene transfer technologies, has made heart failure another excellent candidate for cell and gene-based therapies.
Keywords: Acute myocardial infarction, β-adrenergic system, Calcium cycling proteins, Cardiac stem cells, Gene therapy, Heart failure, Hematopoietic stem cells, Insertional mutagenesis, Lentiviral vector, Retroviral integration.