Heart failure is a leading cause of morbidity and mortality in the developed world. The treatment of heart failure has generally relied on strategies designed to target and limit tissue damage, pathological remodeling, or hemodynamic impairment. Identification of stem cells has however opened new prospects for the development of cell-based regenerative medicine. Indeed, the heart may contain a pool of resident or circulating stem cells, but following injury, these endogenous cells are not sufficiently regenerative to fully repair the damaged myocardium. Alternatively, treatments with exogenous stem cells reduce pathological processes in the damaged heart and improve cardiac tissue regeneration in mice and humans, but it is still a matter of debate whether the delivery of stem cells or stem cell progeny contributes principally to new cardiac tissue formation, to endogenous repair mechanisms, or to the modulation of inflammatory processes.

In this special issue, we encourage the submission of manuscripts describing the role of endogenous and bone marrow-derived stem and progenitor cells in pathophysiological processes following heart injury. We are highly interested in manuscripts that report the clinical and preclinical use of any stem or progenitor cells to treat heart injury. Furthermore, studies on the specific signaling pathways responsible for stem and progenitor cell activation, proliferation and differentiation following the myocardial injury, as well as, reports describing paracrine effects of stem and progenitor cells on the injured myocardium are of major interest. Potential topics include, but are not limited to:

• Paracrine effect of stem and progenitor cells upon heart injury
• Association of stem and progenitor cells with myocardial microenvironment
• Cardioprotective or regenerative capability of ES cells, iPS, endogenous or bone marrow-derived stem, and progenitor cells
• Contribution of stem and progenitor cells in pathological remodeling
• Signaling involved in stem and progenitor cell proliferation, migration to the injury sites, and differentiation
• Heart inflammation and stem and progenitor cells
• Heart fibrosis and stem and progenitor cells
• Stem and progenitor cells and microRNAs
• Immunomodulatory properties of stem and progenitor cells
• Clinical trials with the use of stem and progenitor cells
• Cell delivery: implications for clinical trials

Before submission authors should carefully read over the journal's Author Guidelines, which are located at http://www.hindawi.com/journals/sci/guidelines/. Prospective authors should submit an electronic copy of their complete manuscript through the journal Manuscript Tracking System at http://mts.hindawi.com/ according to the following timetable: