Research: Heart could regrow cells to heal itself

By Brandie Umar - Executive Director of Content | March 29th, 2011

Scientists have discovered a breakthrough method which could encourage heart cells to regenerate, allowing a person to completely recover after a heart attack.

Heart attacks are one of the leading causes of death from heart disease. If the heart attack does not end in fatality the negative effects of the attack on heart cells can lead to heart failure as during a heart attack, heart cells die. Once heart cells die, the body is unable to repair the cells and the surrounding tissue is unable to provide the same function.

The breakthrough development comes as scientists believe they have discovered a way for the surrounding tissue (fibroblasts) to be converted into heart cells (cardiomyocytes).

Based on the logic behind stem cells treatment, scientists have identified three gene-regulating proteins which when added to fibroblast cells encourage the tissue to develop into cardiomyocytes. The main difference between fibroblast tissue and cardiomyocytes cells is the later is a muscle tissue which helps the heart beat regularly.

To administer the proteins needed for the conversion, patients would be fitted with a stent similar to the stents currently used to widen a blocked artery. The proteins would be inside the stent and as the proteins released into the heart tissue the conversion process would take place. The technique has yet to be tried using human tissue cells, however the results on mouse cells suggest that the regeneration of heart cells could occur within 2 weeks.

The research was published in this weeks issue of Cell and the scientists hope to be able to use this technique to prevent heart attack related deaths within 5 years.

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