BREAKTHROUGH HEALS DAMAGED HEARTS!
Organ’s muscles could NEVER rebuild until now
THE revolutionary technology behind America’s most popular COVID-19 vaccines is being harnessed to develop a cure for heart attacks, scientists say.
Researchers at King’s College London are working toward adapting messenger RNA (mRNA) — molecules that carry genetic information and are vital to protein production — to help generate healthy human heart cells.
Pfizer and Moderna’s COVID-19 vaccines utilize mRNA to teach the body’s cells to replicate proteins that trigger an immune response to fight the deadly disease.
Lead researcher Professor Mauro Giacca explains, “We are all born with a set number of muscle cells in our heart, and they are exactly the same ones we will die with. The heart has no capacity to repair itself after a heart attack. Our goal has been to find a treatment that can convince surviving cells to proliferate.
“We are using exactly the same technology as the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines to inject micro RNAs to the heart, reaching surviving heart cells and pushing their proliferation. The new cells would replace the dead ones and instead of forming a scar, the patient has new muscle tissue.”
The team hopes mRNA therapy will have a substantial impact on cardiovascular medicine and prevent millions of heart attacks from progressing toward heart failure.
Trials on impaired pig organs have proved promising, and scientists are working toward testing the process on people in two years.
“Regenerating a damaged human heart has been a dream until a few years ago, but can now become a reality,” says Giacca.