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REVIEW ARTICLE

Regenerative therapies for ischemic heart disease: From cellular strategies to organ-scale solutions

Jacopo Lin1,2 ,  Tadahisa Sugiura1*
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1 Montefiore Medical Center, Department of Cardiothoracic and Vascular Surgery, Bronx, New York, United States of America
2 School of Medicine, Vita-Salute San Raffaele University, Milan, Italy
Global Translational Medicine, 025370070 https://doi.org/10.36922/GTM025370070
Received: 8 September 2025 | Revised: 8 October 2025 | Accepted: 11 October 2025 | Published online: 28 October 2025
© 2025 by the Author(s). This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License ( https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ )
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Abstract

Ischemic heart disease remains the leading cause of death worldwide, yet current therapies cannot restore lost myocardium. Heart transplantation is the only curative treatment, but it is limited by donor shortages and the risk of immune rejection. These challenges have prompted exploration of regenerative strategies designed to support repair or replacement of injured cardiac tissue. This review outlines advances across different levels of intervention. At the cellular level, stem and progenitor populations such as mesenchymal, cardiac, and induced pluripotent stem cells have been explored for their regenerative potential. Tissue engineering approaches, including scaffolds, patches, and injectable hydrogels, aim to enhance cell survival and integration. At a broader scale, organ-level strategies such as decellularization–recellularization and bioprinting represent emerging frontiers. By bringing together these complementary directions, the review highlights how progress in cardiac regeneration spans from cells to whole organs, while also emphasizing the key hurdles that continue to shape their translation.

Keywords
Ischemic heart disease
Heart failure
Myocardial regeneration
Stem cells
Tissue engineering
Bioprinting
Clinical translation
Funding
None.
Conflict of interest
Tadahisa Sugiura is an Editorial Board Member of this journal, but was not in any way involved in the editorial and peer-review process conducted for this paper, directly or indirectly. Separately, other authors declared that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have influenced the work reported in this paper.
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