About the Authors

Takahiro Iwamiya

Roles Conceptualization, Data curation, Formal analysis, Funding acquisition, Investigation, Methodology, Resources, Software, Supervision, Validation, Visualization, Writing – original draft, Writing – review & editing

t.iwamiya@metcela.com

Affiliations Research & Development Department, Metcela Inc., Kawasaki, Kanagawa, Japan, Institute for Advanced Biosciences, Keio University, Tsuruoka, Yamagata, Japan

Bertrand-David Segard

Roles Conceptualization, Data curation, Investigation, Methodology, Resources, Software, Writing – original draft

Affiliation Research & Development Department, Metcela Inc., Kawasaki, Kanagawa, Japan

Yuimi Matsuoka

Roles Conceptualization, Data curation, Investigation, Methodology, Resources, Software, Supervision

Affiliation Research & Development Department, Metcela Inc., Kawasaki, Kanagawa, Japan

Tomomi Imamura

Roles Data curation, Investigation, Methodology, Resources, Software

Affiliation Research & Development Department, Metcela Inc., Kawasaki, Kanagawa, Japan

Competing Interests

However, there are conflicts of interest to declare. Takahiro Iwamiya is a cofounder and co-CEO of Metcela, Inc., he has ownership of stocks. The other authors are employees of Metcela. Takahiro Iwamiya has the authority to make payment decisions regarding employee salaries. Metcela is a company that develops VCAM1-expressing cardiac fibroblasts (VCFs) as a therapy for ischemic heart diseases. Additionally, we applied for the following patents: Inventor: Takahiro Iwamiya. Assignee: Metcela Inc. Title: Composition For Injection Which Can Be Used For Treatment Of Heart Diseases And Contains Fibroblasts, And Method For Producing Fibroblast For Therapy Use. International application number: PCT/JP2018/006795. An object of the present invention is to present VCFs as a method that has not been established yet and that is useful for achieving long-term and fundamental cure of a necrotic cardiac tissue region to allow recovery of a heart function.