Heart muscle cells do not normally replicate in adult tissue, but multiply with abandon during development. This is why the loss of heart muscle after a heart attack is so dire—you can’t grow enough new heart muscle to make up for the loss.

A team of researchers at the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine describe the interconnections between three-molecules that control fetal, heart-muscle-cell proliferation in a mouse model that will help cardiologists better understand the natural repair process after heart attacks and help scientists learn how to expand cardiac stem cells for regenerative therapies.

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