Heart attacks afflict 805,000 Americans and 100,000 people in the United Kingdom each year. Individuals who suffer a heart attack develop a scar and are more susceptible to heart failure as the heart has no ability to repair itself.
As Professor Mauro Giacca, a leading researcher in the study, 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.”
That could all change if clinical trials are successful. The researchers believe that by using mRNA technology, the same technology that is used in the Pfizer and Moderna COVID-19 vaccines, they can deliver treatment to the surviving heart cells to spur replication and regeneration of the organ.
“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,” Giacca explains. He added, “The new cells would replace the dead ones and instead of forming a scar, the patient has new muscle tissue.”
The researchers are also excited about the possibility of limiting heart damage once a heart attack is suffered. By paramedics injecting these proteins into the heart as a patient is en route to the hospital, it would, in theory, reduce the severity and number of deaths from heart attacks.
Giacca is excited about what the future of the technology could mean for managing heart health, saying, "If clinical trials go well, it would be blockbuster medicine. The treatment revolution that has occurred in cancer in recent years, where there is immunotherapy and targeted biological therapies, has not occurred for the heart. Treatment for heart attacks and heart failure remains very similar to 50 years ago."