Mouse skin cells have been directly reprogrammed to become beating heart cells. The method used could be safer and more efficient than previously developed techniques, which can take weeks, yield low numbers of cells and may generate stem cells with the potential to cause cancer.

Sheng Ding at the Scripps Research Institute in La Jolla, California, and his team found a short cut that bypasses the stem-cell stage. The researchers briefly exposed the skin cells to three genes often used in cellular reprogramming and grew the cells in a special medium to avoid the generation of stem cells. Then, treatment with a cocktail of cardiac growth factors coaxed the cells into becoming beating heart cells. The method took just 11–12 days to generate the first beating cells and yielded more cells than previous direct cardiac cell reprogramming techniques.

Nature Cell Biol. doi:10.1038/ncb2164 (2011)