Melbourne bio-tech team in stem cell heart boost

A ground-breaking trial of implanting heart attack victims with stem cells that rebuild damaged tissue and prevent further cardiac failure is about to be implemented by a Melbourne bio-tech company.

Mesoblast’s chief scientific adviser, Professor Silviu Itescu, said of the Richmond company: “We might not be growing a heart but we are helping the heart repair itself and that is equally cutting-edge. We have conducted a large pre-clinical study on sheep here in Australia where new stem cells are preventing heart failure after heart attacks”
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Mesoblast has applied to US authorities to begin a world-first trial where patients receive heart tissue-building stem cells from an unrelated donor. The company recently carried out a pilot trial implanting cardiac patients with their own stem cells at John Hunter Hospital in Newcastle, NSW.

The proposed clinical trial in the US later this year will use cells which are reproduced and injected via catheter into the patient’s heart. The cells do not activate the immune system and therefore are not rejected. The Melbourne moves have occurred at the same time as a British research team at Harefield Hospital outside London has grown part of a human heart from stem cells for the first time.