INDIANAPOLIS - Pediatric cardiology experts from around the world will gather at the Indiana University School of Medicine and Riley Hospital for Children for the second Riley Heart Center Symposium on Cardiac Development September 14- 15, 2009.

The July issue of the journal Pediatric Cardiology focuses on a recent meeting of pediatric cardiology experts from around the world who gathered at the Indiana University School of Medicine and Riley Hospital for Children for the inaugural Riley Heart Center Symposium on Cardiac Development. The experts presented new basic science and clinical research to improve treatment of, and ultimately to prevent, the congenital defects and damage acquired after birth that cause heart failure in children.

Simon Conway, PhD, professor of pediatrics, co-authored a paper with Christoph Lepper and Chen-Ming Fan (PDF) of the Carnegie Institution in Baltimore reporting that adult muscle stem cells do not have the same genetic requirements as embryonic and newborn muscle stem cells. Among the implications: Scientists shouldn't make assumptions about the biology of adult stem cells based on research into their embryonic progenitors, and should carefully consider the potential impacts of the age of stem cells used in transplantation-based therapies. Dr. Conway suggests that "these remarkable and unexpected findings will stimulate thinking in the entire field of myogenesis" - the process of muscle tissue formation. 
The editors at Nature felt the study was so important they rushed it into print online as a "near final version."

INDIANAPOLIS --  The Herman B Wells Center for Pediatric Research and Indiana University School of Medicine have signed an agreement with the University of Ulster, Coleraine campus in Northern Ireland, enabling Bachelor of Science honors students from the School of Biomedical Sciences at Ulster to undertake a year's research internship at the Riley Heart Research Center in Indianapolis.  Only one other university in the United States participates in such an agreement with Ulster, and that is the University of Texas Health Science Centre in San Antonio, Texas.