Heart Tissue Breakthrough

Scientists from Scotland announced the development of patches of tissue that can mend damaged hearts.

A tube of heart tissue was created at Dundee University, using cells from newborn rats. The artificially created tube pulsed like a heart, intensified its activity when adrenaline was applied, and responded to medication like a normal organ.

The lead researcher, Dr. Keith Baar, says that the easiest way to create heart muscle is by using skeletal muscle.

The team hopes to build on the work of Japanese researchers, who have produced a patch of skeletal muscle and have implanted it successfully in animals. Scottish scientists also consider the option of creating heart cells from bone marrow stem cells, for a better compatibility.

Performing a repair of the damaged section of a heart with the help of such tissue patches will be definitely more efficient than putting the patients on waiting lists for transplant organs. This alternative would also save them from taking medication for the rest of their lives.

Researchers have already begun the next phase, which is the attempt to grow sections of a heart in the laboratory. Dr. Baar hopes that the development would transform the lives of people who suffered cardiac arrests. "These people are never going to regain their heart function, which means they cannot do daily activity like walk upstairs and play with their grandchildren", he told The Herald.

Dr. Baar hopes that trials of heart muscle repairs begin as early as 2015.

The research was well received by the British Heart Foundation, and is considered to have great potential.

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