News | July 24, 2009

World’s First Cardiac Adult Stem Cell Patient Receives Infusion Trial in Louisville

Dr. Mark Slaughter with patient Michael Jones, the first recipient of adult stem cells for myocardial regeneration.


July 24, 2009 – Michael Jones has become the world’s first recipient of adult cardiac stem cells to treat congestive heart failure. Jones’ infusion on July 17 marks the world’s first phase-one, FDA-approved clinical trial using c-kit-positive cardiac stem cells to treat heart disease being conducted by a team of University of Louisville physicians at Jewish Hospital.

During the infusion procedure, Jones was directly injected with his own cardiac stem cells into heart scar tissue using a minimally-invasive cardiac catheterization procedure. The 66-year-old, self-employed man continues to recover following the outpatient procedure.

Mark Slaughter, M.D., chief of the division of cardiothoracic surgery at University of Louisville and director of the Heart Transplant and Mechanical Assist Device Program at Jewish Hospital, performed coronary artery bypass surgery on Jones on March 23. Jones suffered from congestive heart failure due to multiple blocked arteries that had resulted in permanent scarring of his heart muscle. During the procedure, Jones’ cardiac stem cells were retrieved from a portion of his own atrium, the upper chamber of the heart. The tissue was then sent to Piero Anversa, of Harvard University and Brigham & Women’s Hospital in Boston, for processing and to grow cardiac stem cells from Jones’ tissue.

Jones’ infusion procedure was performed at Jewish Hospital by Sohail Ikram, M.D., University of Louisville professor of medicine and director and chief of invasive and interventional cardiology at Jewish Hospital.

“We continue to enroll patients in this first-of-its-kind clinical trial,” said study leader Roberto Bolli, Jewish Hospital Heart and Lung Institute distinguished chair in cardiology and director of University of Louisville’s Institute for Molecular Cardiology. “We hope to help the heart regenerate its own tissue and improve heart function.”

Bolli is collaborating with a number of leaders in the field of cardiovascular and stem cell medicine for this clinical trial. The team will continue to evaluate Jones, as well as other patients who have enrolled in the clinical trial, for heart function and blood flow. In addition, the heart’s overall size and the size of the scar tissue will be measured.

Since this is a phase-one clinical trial designed to test the treatment’s safety and feasibility, all patients enrolled in the trial will receive the cardiac stem cell therapy.

Bolli said a similar stem cell clinical trial is being conducted at another facility in California. "The difference between what we have done and what another institute nationally has done is that we have injected a pure population of stem cells, the c-kit-positive cells. The other institution injected cardiosphere-derived cells, which are a mixture of primitive and partially differentiated cells, complicating the recognition of the actual therapeutic cell. Our study involves a specific, well-characterized population of undifferentiated cells: the c-kit-positive cardiac stem cells are self-renewing, clonogenic and multipotent, which are the fundamental properties of stem cells," Bolli said.

For more information: www.jewishhospital.org


Related Content

News | Cardiovascular Clinical Studies

June 11, 2025 — Bayer and the Broad Institute have have extended their research collaboration of 10 years by an ...

Home June 11, 2025
Home
News | Cardiovascular Clinical Studies

May 27, 2025 — Despite scientific advances in cardiovascular care, people in living in rural areas and other communities ...

Home May 27, 2025
Home
News | Cardiovascular Clinical Studies

May 20, 2025 — Shockwave Medical, Inc., part of Johnson & Johnson MedTechhas announced the 30-day primary endpoint ...

Home May 21, 2025
Home
News | Cardiovascular Clinical Studies

Jan. 13, — A new cohort study among 103,642 adults found that current use of cigars was associated with increased risk ...

Home January 14, 2025
Home
News | Cardiovascular Clinical Studies

Nov. 22, 2024 — BridgeBio Pharma, Inc. recently announced that the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved ...

Home November 25, 2024
Home
News | Cardiovascular Clinical Studies

Nov. 18, 2024 — Silence Therapeutics presented end-of-treatment data from its Phase 2 ALPACAR-360 study of zerlasiran, a ...

Home November 18, 2024
Home
News | Cardiovascular Clinical Studies

Aug. 15, 2024 — According to a new study being presented at ACC Asia 2024 in Delhi, India, drinking over 400 mg of ...

Home August 14, 2024
Home
Videos | Cardiovascular Clinical Studies

As part of DAIC's continuing Thought Leadership Series, this month Editorial Director Melinda Taschetta-Millane sits ...

Home July 30, 2024
Home
News | Cardiovascular Clinical Studies

July 25, 2024 — BioCardia, Inc., a global leader in cellular and cell-derived therapeutics for the treatment of ...

Home July 25, 2024
Home
News | Cardiovascular Clinical Studies

July 18, 2024 — Elucid, a pioneering AI medical technology company providing physicians with imaging analysis software ...

Home July 18, 2024
Home
Subscribe Now