On Nov. 20, 2013, researchers at the University of Toronto’s Institute of Biomaterials & Biomedical Engineering and the McEwen Centre for Regenerative Medicine announced they had developed the first-ever method for creating living, three-dimensional human heart tissue that behaves like mature heart tissue.

The study marks the first time that researchers have tried to define and formulate the precise type and ratio of cell types that produce highly functional cardiac tissue. The results were published in PNAS study.