Reprogramming the beat: kicking it up a notch.

The explosion of stem cell research in cardiology has yielded an increasing recognition that understanding developmental cell fate decisions is critical for everything from disease models to cellular therapeutics. However, the biology is particularly rich and complex and has not yielded easily to traditional investigative methods. One area of intense focus is the study of the cues responsible for the development of specialized conduction tissues in the heart. Direction of native cells or exogenous cells into the conduction system lineage might offer therapeutic insights into degenerative conduction disease.