Scientists at John Hopkins University are studying trials on pigs resulting in 50% to 75% restoration of their damaged hearts by transmitting adult stem cells transplanted from bone marrow.

Now, two patients have signed up for the human trials and are set to begin. According to the report, the study of 48 heart attack patients that will ultimately take part in the phase 1 study, which is designed to test the safety of injecting adult stem cells into their hearts

Nicole Draper was 7 1/2 months pregnant when she learned the twins she was carrying would be born with heart muscles too weak to pump the blood crucial for their survival.

Her sons, Nicholas and Nathaniel, are now two weeks old, and doctors say their chances of survival are good, only if they receive heart transplants within the next three to six months

Officials announced Tuesday, a pet hamster blamed for spreading a virus that killed three transplant patients in April, was traced to an Ohio-based distribution center, which supplies hamsters to pet stores across the East Coast.

State and federal investigators quarantined the distribution center Monday, and plan on testing the animals for the virus, in hopes of tracing its origin

Christina Ficara - All Headline News Staff Reporter

A Rhode Island woman is thought to have caught the lymphocytic choriomeningitis virus (LCMV) from her hamster shortly before her unrelated death last month

Three transplant patients died in mid-April, weeks after undergoing the procedures. One a double lung recipient, the other a liver recipient, and the third a kidney transplant patient.

A fourth patient, who also received a kidney transplant, became ill but is now recovering