Notch signaling respecifies the hemangioblast to a cardiac fate

The development of effective methods for generating cardiomyocytes from embryonic stem cells may prove useful in cell replacement therapies and drug screening. Chen et al. show that activation of Notch signaling efficiently converts hematopoietic progenitors derived from mouse embryonic stem cells into cardiovascular progenitors that give rise to large numbers of cardiomyocytes.