Tests of gene therapy on laboratory rats have raised hopes of stopping the degeneration of tissue that characterizes chronic heart failure. Researchers at the University of California, San Diego, used hamsters with cardiac disease, randomly assigning 30 to receive the gene therapy and leaving the other 28 untreated. Five weeks after treatment the gene therapy group’s heart muscles stabilized, while those of the untreated hamsters continued to weaken. (Science News, July 27, 2002)