Catholics research new stem-cell therapy

DR. Eduardo Marban, director of the Cedars-Sinai Heart Institute in Los Angeles, and his wife, Linda Marban, research manager for Cedars-Sinai’s Board of Governors Heart Stem Cell Center, are blazing a new trail in adult cardiac stem-cell research.

In a first-ever clinical trial, a small sample of a patient’s own heart tissue is used to grow specialized heart stem cells. The stem cells are then injected back into the patient’s heart in an effort to repair and re-grow healthy muscle in a heart that has been injured by heart attack.

The trial could start a new era of treating heart disease, which is the No. 1 killer of men and women in the United States. If cardiac regeneration is possible, then people who suffer heart attacks might be able to achieve greater post-heart-attack productivity and health and, for the most extreme cases, not require heart transplants.

The moral implications of the trial are also profound; no embryo is involved at any stage of the process.

“I come from a culture that’s deeply Catholic,” said Eduardo Marban, who came to the United States from Cuba with his parents when he was 6 years old. “For me, that we could develop a treatment that was not ethically problematic, that was consistent with the Hippocratic Oath and the tenets of Catholicism, was very gratifying. We not only get a unique chance to do good, but we do it without trampling on anyone’s ethical principles.”

Linda Marban’s faith also influences her life as a scientist.

“I am a strongly believing and practicing Catholic,” she said. “When I believe in God the most is when I look at a chart of cell signaling. When you see all those millions and billions of processes that we don’t even begin to really understand, there is no way some higher power didn’t generate that.”

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