Transplantation of somatic cells to supply the function of a deficient organ has been successfully performed for decades for bone marrow, and more recently, only with inconsistent results, for skeletal muscles (Duchenne dystrophy), liver (as a bridge to transplantation), pancreas (islets of Langerhans) or brain.2 It has been shown that minced fetal brain tissue can be grafted within the brain of Parkinsonian patients, increasing dopamine secretion and decreasing symptoms. Like brain cells, adult ventricular myocytes are terminally differentiated, with no possibility of cell division from neonatal age; thus, following injury (infarction), repair consists of scar formation, hypertrophy of surviving myocytes, and hyperplasia of non-muscle cells such as fibroblasts (remodelling). These phenomena become deleterious over time and do not address the initial problem, the loss of contractile cells. Thus, as with Parkinson's disease, cultured fetal cells have been first used as intramyocardial grafts.