Scientists develop 'universal' virus-free method to turn blood cells into 'beating' heart cells

Johns Hopkins scientists have developed a simplified, cheaper, all-purpose method they say can be used by scientists around the globe to more safely turn blood cells into heart cells. The method is virus-free and produces heart cells that beat with nearly 100 percent efficiency, they claim. "We took the recipe for this process from a complex minestrone to a simple miso soup," says Elias Zambidis, M.D., Ph.D., assistant professor of oncology and pediatrics at the Johns Hopkins Institute for Cell Engineering and the Kimmel Cancer Center. Zambidis says, "many scientists previously thought that a nonviral method of inducing blood cells to turn into highly functioning cardiac cells was not within reach, but "we've found a way to do it very efficiently and we want other scientists to test the method in their own labs." However, he cautions that the cells are not yet ready for human testing