HT15. COVID-19 vaccinated individuals may be ill…See more

The team went further, using a cutting-edge technology developed in Wu’s laboratory. Human skin or blood cells can be transformed into blank stem-like cells and then guided to differentiate into heart muscle cells, macrophages, and the cells that line blood vessels. These cells can then be assembled into tiny spherical structures that mimic the beating, contracting behavior of actual heart tissue — what the researchers call “cardiac spheroids.”

When these cardiac spheroids were treated with cytokine-enriched fluid from vaccine-stimulated immune cells, markers of cardiac stress increased significantly and the spheroids’ ability to contract rhythmically was impaired. When cytokine inhibitors were applied, much of this damage was reversed.