Year 1

In the first year of our proposal “Macaca Mulatta as an Advanced Tool for Predictive Preclinical Testing of Engineered Cardiac Autografts and Allografts”, together with our German collaborator, we have made significant progress in the first four milestones of our original proposal. Specifically, we have created rhesus macaque induced pluripotent stem cells (riPSCs), generated and scaled up cardiomyocytes (riPSC-CMs) from these lines, generated and scaled up rhesus engineered heart muscles (rEHMs) comprised of riPSC-CMs, and, finally, have implanted both riPSC-CMs and rEHMs into a small animal rodent model with heart attacks. The creation of riPSC-CMs and rEHMs is important in establishing a relevant pre-clinical model for iPSC therapy for heart disease and, to date and to the best of our knowledge, has not been reported by any other investigators. As such, we believe our progress is contributing to California’s effort to be at the forefront of stem cell research.