Researchers have developed lab-grown muscle that can repair itself. The scientists from Duke developed an artificial muscle that contracts powerfully and rapidly and integrates into mice quickly and can even heal itself in laboratory settings and inside the animal.
Through years of perfecting their techniques, a team led by Bursac and graduate student Mark Juhas discovered that preparing better muscle requires two things—well-developed contractile muscle fibers and a pool of muscle stem cells, known as satellite cells.

Every muscle has satellite cells on reserve, ready to activate upon injury and begin the regeneration process. The key to the team's success was successfully creating the microenvironments—called niches—where these stem cells await their call to duty
The next step is to see if the muscle can be used to repair actual muscle injuries and disease. [PNAS via Duke]