Last year in Cell, the collaborating labs of Amy Wagers, PhD, and Richard Lee, MD, reported that injections of growth differentiation factor 11 (GDF11) can reduce the thickening of the heart that typically comes with aging in mice.  

Now, in a paper in Science, Wagers' lab showed that GDF11 also helps aging mice recover from a muscle injury and boosts their performance on running and grip strength tests.

In another study of mice injected with GDF11, the lab of Lee Rubin, PhD, found that GDF11 also encourages growth of new blood vessels and olfactory neurons in the mouse brain. As they reported in a second Science paper, the animals gained a keener sense of smell. In both muscle and the brain, GDF11 appears to work in part by restoring the function of stem cells. Read the story. 

The labs grew, for the first time, functioning human heart tissue carrying an inherited cardiovascular disease (Barth syndrome). The research appears to be a big step forward for personalized medicine, as it is working proof that a chunk of tissue containing a patient's specific genetic disorder can be replicated in the laboratory. The work was published in Nature Medicine. Learn more. 

Read a patient perspective at the Children's Hospital Vector blog.