Heart disease is the number one cause of death globally and accounts for more deaths annually than from any other source. In general, heart disease refers to conditions such as coronary artery disease, cardiac arrest, and congenital heart diseases. Heart disease is a huge burden on health care system and colossal amount of money is being spent each year to treat heart failure patients.

Current medical interventions are designed to be ‘damage limiting’ without offering true regeneration of the injured cardiac tissue. Stem cell therapy for heart disease has demonstrated promising results but is surrounded by a number of issues that have hampered development towards a cure for heart disease. Poor survival, cardiac lineage commitment, and depleted repair potential with age and disease pose significant barriers for stem cell based therapies to repair injured heart. Furthermore, the best stem cell for cardiac repair still remains open to debate and a number of recent controversial reports regarding the identity of the true resident heart stem cell have fuelled speculation about the overall efficacy of cell therapeutic approaches.

We welcome original research articles as well as review articles that would elucidate new findings and describe exciting challenges being faced in the field with possible solutions to help in the progression of stem cell therapy.

Potential topics include, but are not limited to:

• Different stem cell types for cardiac repair
• Modification of stem cells to enhance cardiac regeneration
• Effect of disease on stem cell function
• Aging and stem cells
• Metabolism and stem cells
• Safety and efficacy of stem cell therapeutics
• Stem cells and epigenetics