Heart failure—now the number one cause of death worldwide—is the motivation behind Murry’s specialized research into innovative treatments. Murry believes that it is not enough simply to help a patient, plagued with chronic disease survive. Instead, his pioneering work seeks to harness the potential of human stem cells to eliminate the disease from the body. While Murry feels there is still a great deal of work to accomplish even after his 31 years in the field, achieving this tall order is definitively much closer today.