moving away from the

blasts of the past

Researchers begin to clear muscle-cell transplant hurdles

by Margaret Wahl

In the early 1990s, amid great excitement, six trials took place of transplants of immature muscle cells from healthy relatives into boys with Duchenne muscular dystrophy. (Five were funded by MDA.)

The strategy involved intramuscular injection of a type of muscle repair cell called a satellite cell, multiplied many times (cultured) in laboratory containers. The cells also were called “myoblasts,” meaning they give rise to muscle cells. (“Blast” comes from the Greek word for germ or bud, and “myo” from the Greek word for muscle.)