On Mar. 1, 2021, a study from Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis provided evidence that COVID-19 patients’ heart damage is caused by the virus invading and replicating inside heart muscle cells, leading to cell death and interfering with heart muscle contraction.

The researchers used stem cells to engineer heart tissue that models the human infection and could help in studying the disease and developing possible therapies. The study was published in the Journal of the American College of Cardiology.