The UCSD Medical Center is the first hospital in California to offer a new stem cell study, hoping to rebuild unhealthy hearts. Some people pay $50,000 for similar treatment overseas, but someone you love could enroll in the program for free.

"That's really the magic of stem cells - the potential to take cells and inject them into the heart and have them grow and replace damaged heart muscle," he said.

Sixty patients at five hospitals across the country will be a part of the study. Twenty-five percent of the patients selected will receive placebo injections.