51�Թ�

When the team treated the mice with verapamil, a calcium channel blocker used to treat hypertension and chest pains, the mice quickly recovered muscle function and began to resemble their healthy, wild type peers.

"We think that the calcium channel is a new therapeutic target and if we can target it correctly, pharmacologically that it will improve muscle function and health. Our goal now is to find the appropriate and safe calcium channel blocker that will do the job and we believe it exists."

When his blood pressure didn’t budge, his internist added two other classes of drugs: a calcium channel blocker and an ACE inhibitor.

Amlodipine, a calcium channel blocker, causes blood vessels to relax and widen, and lowers the heart rate.

“It’s pretty cool,” said Tanner Oyen, a student at Lancaster High School in Grant County in southwestern Wisconsin, about the experiment in which students counted the beats made by stem-cell-derived cardiomyocytes before and after exposing them to verapamil, a calcium channel blocker.