Breakthrough at UW Medicine may treat the No. 1 cause of death in the world

SEATTLE — A medical breakthrough at UW Medicine may treat the No. 1 cause of death in the world.

Dr. Charles Murry, director of the UW Medicine Institute for Stem Cell and Regenerative Medicine, and his team discovered heart muscle cells can be made from stem cells.

They can be grown in unlimited quantities, transplanted into a heart and make a new muscle in the walls of the heart.

"If you can imagine we would come in with a catheter inside and (a) plant little garden bed of new muscle cells into the walls. And the goal would be to re-muscularize it -- to get the muscle to take and grow back in so the heart can beat vigorously," Dr. Murry told KIRO 7's Rachel Calderon.

Tonight on KIRO 7 News at 6, Rachel Calderon goes inside the lab to show us the technique being tested that may one day offer heart attack sufferers renewed strength. Watch on-air or here.

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