In a step toward independence from embryonic stem cells, University of Wisconsin scientists have shown stem cells induced from human skin can form the cells essential to the makeup and function of the human heart.

UW School of Medicine and Public Health professor and cardiologist Timothy Kamp and his research team published their findings Thursday in Circulation Research, a journal produced by the American Heart Association.

Their study made use of induced pluripotent stem cells, or iPS cells, to produce pulsating, operating heart muscle cells, or cardiomyocytes.

“What our study basically did was show — for the iPS cell lines we studied — they could form beating heart cells in a dish and show the … expected activity,” Kamp said. “They can form heart cells just like embryonic stem cells.”

Kamp said there is evidence all three types of heart cells can be produced from the iPS cells and the finding will be beneficial in a variety of ways.

“They’re going to contribute in major ways in many different areas,” Kamp said “They’re powerful research tools … and give us ways to study the human heart that we previously didn’t have. In the best case scenario, it will give us an opportunity to produce cells to repair an injured heart.”

As the first generation of the cells was produced using a virus to reprogram the skin cells, Kamp said further research must be done to ensure the cells do not eventually produce cancer.

Kamp noted the use of the cells in humans is still many years away, and the next step will be to produce the cells more efficiently and test them in a variety of situations to see if they react as expected.

If all goes well, the cells could then be subject to tests in animals and eventually humans.

“We hope this will give us a personalized cell source that is not going to be rejected by a patient,” Kamp said. “But that’s years and years away and not for every form of heart disease because it’s expensive. It’s one thing to go to the drug store and get drugs, and it’s another to get a piece of skins and grow up cells.”

The finding comes only three years after UW scientists James Thomson and Junying Yu, who co-authored Kamp’s study, first produced iPS cells in mice. Human iPS cells were then produced in 2007.

To put this timeline in perspective, Jianhua Zhang, the lead author of Kamp’s study, noted in a university statement that 17 years lapsed between the time a mouse embryonic stem cell and the first human embryonic stem cell were created.

“It’s exciting for all of us in the lab, not just me, but all of the researchers,” Kamp said. “This is an exciting time to be in the stem cell field, and these cells have really revolutionized some of our understandings. To see them forming heart cells is exciting and gives us a lot of material to work with.”