New biodegradable gel could repair damage caused by heart attack

This is a biodegradable gel which can be directly injected into a beating heart which works as a scaffold for injected cells to grow new tissue.

Experts at the University of Manchester, backed by the British Heart Foundation, created the substance.

The new gel is made of amino acids called peptides which are the building blocks of proteins.

It behaves like a liquid when it is under stress as the peptides disassemble – which is an ideal state to inject it – and then the peptides work to reassemble, making it a solid.

The new gel acts as a scaffold for injected cells to grow new tissue around the heart (PA)

This holds the cells in place as they graft onto the heart.

For the results to be successful, a good blood supply is vital for the injected cells to be able to develop into a new tissue.

To prove that the technology could work, researchers showed that the gel can support the growth of normal heart muscle tissue.

When they added human cells that had been reprogrammed to become heart muscle cells into the gel, they were able to grow them in a dish for three weeks and the cells started to spontaneously beat.

Professor James Leiper, associate medical director at the British Heart Foundation, said: “We’ve come so far in our ability to treat heart attacks and today more people than ever survive.

“However, this also means that more people are surviving with damaged hearts and are at risk of developing heart failure.

“This new injectable technology harnesses the natural properties of peptides to potentially solve one of the problems that has hindered this type of therapy for years.

“If the benefits are replicated in further research and then in patients, these gels could become a significant component of future treatments to repair the damage caused by heart attacks.”