Heart failure stem cell trial to be paused after calls for retractions

The National Institutes of Health will pause human testing of an experimental stem cell therapy for heart failure while a board charged with overseeing patient safety reviews the taxpayer-funded trial, in light of emerging questions about the scientific foundation for the treatment.

Outside physicians and scientists have been publicly calling for the trial to be suspended since news earlier this month that a years-long Harvard investigation uncovered “false and/or fabricated data” in 31 scientific papers from the laboratory of Piero Anversa, a researcher whose blockbuster findings raised hope there were stem cells in the heart that could repair damaged muscle. Anversa is not directly involved in the trial, but the heart stem cells he identified are being injected into the hearts of some of the patients.

The decision to temporarily pause the trial came “out of an abundance of caution,” said David Goff, director of the Division of Cardiovascular Sciences at the National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute, who said the trial’s scientific rationale is largely based on animal studies not conducted by Anversa.