The goal of the research program in which I participate is to restore normal cardiac function to patients with cardiac diseases. In the laboratory, we discovered that injecting stem cells into the cardiac region injured by a heart attack improved function and prevented death from heart failure. We then performed a series of clinical trials and found that the benefits in patients were not as good as in experimental models. Older patients have diminished stem cell function and we found that bone marrow transplantation restored the ability of stem cells to repair the heart after injury.