Reviewing Efforts to Use Cells and Scaffolds to Regenerate the Heart

The heart is one of the least regenerative tissues in the body. Damage resulting from loss of blood flow during a heart attack leads to scarring and loss of function, rather than any meaningful degree of regeneration. While preventing the atherosclerosis that causes occlusion of blood vessels is the most desirable goal, finding ways to repair a damaged heart is also a high priority for the research community. Many groups have worked towards regenerative therapies based on delivery of cells and scaffolding material, even layers of artificial tissue made by combining the two, but progress has been frustratingly slow. Cardiovascular diseases (CVD) are the leading cause of hospitalization and death globally. CVD includes disturbances of the heart rhythm, cardiac valve pathologies, genetically driven malformations and, ultimately, peripheral artery disease (PAD) or coronary artery disease (CAD), which may culminate, respectively, in critical limb ischemia (CLI) and heart failure (HF). The use of cells with stem/progenitor characteristics in PAD and CLI has shown a success in clinical translation to a certain extent, given the ability of the chosen cells (e.g., derived from bone marrow, peripheral blood, or cord blood) to promote de novo vasculogenesis by a robust "paracrine effect". By contrast, the use of a similar setting to regenerate the contractile mass of the heart to compensate the loss of myocytes due to acute/chronic ischemia and/or inflammation has been largely ...
Source: Fight Aging! - Category: Research Authors: Tags: Daily News Source Type: blogs