Jian Wang1, Fei Wang, Bo Xiang, Jixian Deng, Chris Stillwell, Hung-Yu Lin, Marco Gruwel, Chun-Te Ko, Boguslaw Tomanek, Mike Sowa, Tarek Kashour, Darren Freed, Rakesh Arora, Ganghong Tian
1National Research Council, Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada
Cell therapy holds a great promise for curing of various degenerative diseases, including congestive heart failure (CHF). However, both animal and human studies showed very marginal benefits of cell therapy. Lack of strategies to confine implanted stem cells in a targeted region may underlie the limited efficacy observed in cell therapy. This study was to determine whether an externally applied static magnetic field (SMF) increase the retention of superparamagnetic iron oxide (SPIO)-labeled cells in a targeted organ and then improve efficacy of cell therapy.