One day, a virus in your heart might actually be a good thing

File this under "science is amazing." Currently, an irregular heartbeat is treated either by drugs or an artificial pacemaker. But a team of researchers at the Cedars-Sinai Heart Institute in Los Angeles say they're closer to developing a biological solution, after injecting a genetically modified virus into guinea pigs' hearts that transformed some of their heart cells into new pacemaker cells. These specialized cells then started to successfully regulate the guinea pigs' heartbeats. "We expect this to work in humans," said Hee Cheol Cho. "It would be two to three years from now until the first clinical trial." [Source]

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