Editorial

The inability of the adult human heart to regenerate in re-sponse to injury, disease, and aging stands as a central challenge in cardiovascular medicine. Following myocardial infarction (MI), billions of cardiomyocytes are lost and re-placed with an avascular fibrotic scar. Although various medi-cal interventions have augmented survival rates after MI, the fibrotic myocardium mitigates cardiac contractility, leading to a poor long-term prognosis in these patients. Thus, there is an immense need for innovative approaches to repopulate lost cardiomyocytes following cardiac injury. Article, see p 354 In principle, several biological approaches to heart re-generation can be envisioned, including stem cell therapies, reprogramming of cardiac fibroblasts into cardiomyocytes, activation of cardiomyocyte proliferation, and suppression of fibrosis. However, each of these approaches faces uncer