Tiny dancers 1919 Stem Cell Institute find protein that reverses
some effects of heart aging in mice Two Harvard Stem Cell
Institute (HSCI) researchers — a stem cell biologist and a
practicing cardiologist at Brigham and Women’s Hospital — have
identified a protein in the blood of mice and humans that may
prove to be the first effective treatment for the form of age-
related heart failure that affects millions of Americans. When
the protein, called GDF-11, was injected into old mice, which
develop thickened heart walls in a manner similar to aging
humans, the hearts were reduced in size and thickness,
resembling the healthy hearts of younger mice. Even more
important than the implications for the treatment of diastolic
heart failure, the finding by Richard T. Lee, a Harvard Medical
School professor at the hospital, and Amy Wagers, a professor in
Harvard’s Department of Stem Cell and Regenerative Biology,
ultimately may rewrite our understanding of aging. It seems like
I remember reading last year that men and