What the human heart can do

By Caleb Hellerman, CNN

updated 9:58 AM EDT, Fri May 24, 2013

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(CNN) -- Dr. Roberto Bolli's face lights up when he talks about his true love: the human heart.

"The heart is really a miraculous organ. It beats 72 times a minute throughout our life, which means billions of times in our lifetime. And it never gets tired," Bolli says.

"It knows exactly how much blood to pump; it can increase its output by fivefold if we need more oxygen -- for example, if we're running or doing strenuous activity. You have 5 billion cells called myocites, all beating in synchrony, in a perfectly coordinated manner, to maximize the heart's pumping ability. It is an engineering feat that never ceases to amaze me."

Bolli was born in Perugia, Italy, the son of a general practitioner. He came to the United States after finishing medical school in Italy, starting at Baylor College of Medicine in Houston. Since 1994, he's been the chief of cardiology at the University of Louisville, where he also directs the Institute of Molecular Cardiology.

Like most physicians, Bolli was taught that heart cells don't regenerate, and that any cells which die from loss of oxygen during a heart attack are lost forever. But the lesson never quite sunk in.

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What the human heart can do