“…Specifically, we were able to investigate how delivery rate impacted the efficacy of a known cardioprotective growth factor, HGF. Despite the benefits of HGF therapy, including increased angiogenesis 6, 21–27 , reduced apoptosis 6, 22–26, 28 , and reduced fibrosis 6, 21–22, 24, 26–28 , the use of recombinant HGF is limited by poor stability and high cost and thus a more cost effective and practical alternative is to deliver HGF-f, which has shown enhanced stability and expression yield, comparable c-met activation compared to recombinant HGF 12 , and efficacy post-MI when delivered in a biomaterial 13 . In all measured outcomes it was shown that delivering HGF-f over a three-day time frame was optimal.…”