Hydrogel for Heart Attack Therapy

Many universities and scientific teams across the globe have been working to grow functioning heart cells on the heart in patients who have had a heart attack. After a heart attack occurs, tissue dies and the body replaces that tissue with non-beating scar tissue. This permanently weakens the heart because the scar tissue is not able to help the heart pump blood throughout the body. The current experimental technique is to introduce a micro-scaffolding to the affected area for new cells to grow on. This, however, requires the scaffolding to be surgically applied to the heart. Researchers at the University of California, San Diego have recently reported successful animal trials in which an injected hydrogel is used rather than a micro-scaffolding.

Led by Karen Christman, the team starts by obtaining cardiac connective tissue and cleansing the tissue to remove its muscle cells. After the tissue has been cleansed, the structural proteins that make up a tissue are left. Then, the sample is freeze-dried into a styrofoam-like substance and crushed into a powder. An enzyme is then added to the power to liquefy it and the liquid is injected into the hearts of pigs with cardiac damage. Once injected, the liquid turns into a porous, semi-solid gel upon reaching body temperature. The gel promoted new tissue growth and improved the pigs’ condition.

The team found that the gel not only provided a scaffold for new tissue growth, but most likely provided biochemical signals which prevented the surrounding heart tissue from deteriorating any further.

Other hydrogels have been invented before, but they gel too quickly to be abled to be inserted with a catheter, so they still require surgery. Christman believes that this gel would be able to be delivered by a catheter, so surgery and general anesthesia would not be required for the procedure. When the team injected the hydrogel into rats, the hydrogel was not rejected and did not cause arrhythmic heart beating. This is a good sign that the hydrogel could be compatible in humans.

I found this article interesting because the more procedures that move away from invasive surgeries, the better. Also, heart attack patients are left with weaker hearts which cannot pump blood through the body as efficiently. This would be an easy way to improve the heart's function after a patient has had a heart attack.

Source:

http://www.gizmag.com/hydrogel-grows-new-heart-tissue/21635/