Breakthrough treatment could replace dead human heart tissue after a heart attack, study says

Ella Wills28 November 2017

Scientists have created a breakthrough artificial human heart muscle large enough to replace damaged tissue after a heart attack.

Biomedical engineers in North Carolina are behind the technology, which takes a major step toward repairing dead heart muscle in human patients.

The advance is the first therapy able to fully replace dead muscle lost during an attack, according to researchers.

Researchers at Duke University published their findings in a new study in Nature Communications on Tuesday.

The patch, which measures 16 square centimetres, could be used to replace damaged muscle after a heart attack (Nenad Bursac, DUKE UNIVERSITY)
NENAD BURSAC, DUKE UNIVERSITY

Previous treatments after a heart attack were aimed at reducing the symptoms of damage done to the heart, Ilya Shadrin, a biomedical engineering doctoral student at the university explained.

The new heart patch could fully replace lost muscle and remain active for a long time, offering more strength for contractions, according to the study.

The patch, which is 16 square centimetres and five to eight cells thick, is the first of its kind large enough to cover affected human tissue.

The treatment could be used on humans after they have suffered a heart attack

It is as strong as native heart tissue and also secretes enzymes that could help recovery of damaged tissue, researchers say.

Previously researchers developed human heart patches on a smaller scale for drug development.

"Creating individual cardiac muscle cells is pretty commonplace, but people have been focused on growing miniature tissues for drug development," said Nenad Bursac, professor of biomedical engineering.

"Scaling it up to this size is something that has never been done and it required a lot of engineering ingenuity."

It is strong enough to mimic the contractions of the heart
NENAD BURSAC, DUKE UNIVERSITY

Unlike some human organs, the heart cannot regenerate itself after a heart attack.

The dead muscle is often replaced by scar tissue that can cause arrhythmia, or even heart failure.

The cells for the heart patch are grown from human pluripotent stem cells -- the cells that can become any type of cell in the body.

To create the patch, researchers placed these cells at specific ratios into a jelly-like substance where they self-organised and grew into functioning tissue.

Tests proved that the heart muscle in the patch is fully functional, with electrical, mechanical and structural properties that resemble those of a normal, healthy adult heart.

The cardiac patches maintained function when implanted onto mouse and rat hearts.

But there is still some work to be done before the patch can be used on human patients - researchers are now developing the thickness of the patch as it needs to be much greater.

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