Regenerating the heart after a heart attack
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New life for scarred hearts
A new drug aims to heal heart attack damage by reducing scarring and regrowing heart muscle – offering hope for millions with heart disease.
Problem
Heart attacks leave scars that hearts can’t heal
Heart attacks kill heart muscle cells, which the body cannot regenerate. These dead cells are replaced with non-functional scar tissue that can’t contract or pump blood properly, leading to long-term heart damage and heart failure in about a third of patients.
Current treatments only help reduce strain on the heart or prevent further attacks, but none restore lost heart tissue, leaving millions of people with lifelong complications and an uncertain future.
Solution
First-of-its-kind treatment to regenerate heart muscle
This project is developing a first-in-class, minimally invasive, injectable therapy that reprograms scar tissue into healthy, functioning heart muscle.
The therapy uses messenger RNA (mRNA) — the same type of technology used in COVID-19 vaccines — to send healing instructions directly into the heart. These instructions are carried in tiny particles called lipid nanoparticles (LNPs), which help safely deliver the message to specific heart cells and activate only where needed.
The project brings together cutting-edge breakthroughs in advanced gene science (mRNA), delivery technology (LNPs), and heart cell mapping (single-cell genomics) to help ensure the treatment is safe, targeted, and effective.
The team has already demonstrated that their therapy can successfully reach and enter damaged heart tissue using in vitro models - a critical step toward regenerating the heart after a heart attack.
This groundbreaking approach could regenerate heart muscle in ways once thought impossible - offering hope to millions living with the long-term effects of heart damage.
Impact
Restoring hearts. Reducing deaths. Rewriting futures
This therapy has the potential to help every heart attack survivor by aiding recovery, preventing heart failure, and reducing the risk of death. Additionally, it could reduce hospitalisations and improve recovery outcomes and increase equity of access through a non-surgical approach.
By regenerating the heart, we are not just treating the symptoms of heart attacks – we are offering a true second chance at life.
Meet the team
Supported by
The technology to accomplish this project has only emerged in the past few years. We have an historic opportunity to combine these new technologies and develop a drug that changes the paradigm on how we treat people who have a heart attack - making heart failure resulting from heart attacks a thing of the past.
Alex Pinto
Project Lead
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