by the Hescheler Institute of Shanghai Industry Technology Institute

In the January of 2016, the Hescheler Institute of Shanghai Industry Technology Institute realized artificial heart-beating of cardiomyocytes from a normal stem call through the methods of resuscitation and amplification.

What are the artificially induced cardiomyocytes for? Director of the Hescheler Institute, Dr. Zhou Xiangqian answered this question. Cells are the basic units of life, just like molecules are the basic units of matters. The functions of cells decides the functions of organs and tissues, then the organs and tissues compose living bodies, just like cardiomyocytes compose the heart and then the heart becomes the indispensable organ of human being. The cells in heart do not have self generation capability so when attacked by heart failure and other diseases causing cardiac cell death, cardiomyocytes do not regenerate after death. So the quantity of cardiomyocytes for the heart would not be adequate and there will be failure of heart functions. Stem cells have the capability of self-regeneration and could be differentiated into pluripotent cells. The new concept of heart disease treatment is to inject cardiomyocytes with mixed stem cell resources with self-regeneration functions.

Statistics show that there are almost 550,000 people in China die of sudden cardiac death, at least 1000 plus each day, which is dreadful. Thus, it is important and significant to apply the new stem cell technology to treat heart diseases and it is the aim of founding the Hescheler Institute. The next step would be clinical researches based on mature beating cardiomyocytes production technology so that heart disease patients would be saved from the shadow of death.

At the end of last year, to respond actively to the call for enhancing fundamental research of stem cells and self-innovation capability of transfer and application, for cultivating talent teams of stem cell researches and applications, the Hescheler Institute was established with support from Germany-China Economy and Technology Cooperation Center, Shanghai Academy of Science and Technology, and Shanghai Industrial Technology Institute. The Chief Scientist of the institute is Prof. Hescheler, who is the main organizer of the largest European stem cell research project, one of the founders of embryo stem cell and IPS cell researches, from the University of Cologne, and a joint China-Germany stem cell research team. The institute would be devoted to the construction of open platform for clinical application allying downstream enterprises and integrated with international collaborations to carry out application technology development and propel the industrialization and public services with relevant technologies.