Every year, an estimated 785,000 new heart attacks occur in the United States alone, yet there is no known cure for healing the consequent cardiac tissue damage. Scar tissue forms after a heart attack, impairing muscle function and perhaps leading to congestive heart failure. However, an innovative discovery was recently unearthed that has the potential to restore damaged tissue from the inside out a biomaterial that is administered to the heart shortly after a heart attack.
Cardiovascular diseases are a very significant health risk in our society, with over 27% of the population experiencing some form of it. Unfortunately, over 50,000 people die daily due to this type of disease, making it the leading cause of death worldwide. Heart attacks occur because the flow of oxygen is cut off to a coronary artery, putting an immense amount of stress on the heart. Due to this large damage to the organ, its cardiac tissue often endures permanent damage after just a few hours.
Nonetheless, as discoveries are made, cardiovascular diseases are becoming a thing of the past with progressive technologies. Recently, a new biomaterial that could essentially eradicate the effects of heart attacks has been discovered at the University of California, San Diego. As they perfected the substance to control tissue damage, they started to test and examine the effects on rodents and pigs. Fortunately, the experiments demonstrated a high level of effectiveness, being able to “repair tissue damage and reduce inflammation directly after a heart attack (Gasparini, 2023)”.
However, this was not an unexpected discovery. For years, scientists have been experimenting with stem cells derived from body fat, which demonstrated their ability to mend different types of tissue. There is a significant issue with this solution, though: stem cells are expensive and difficult to insert directly into the heart. Spang, a Ph.D. student in Christman's lab, was one of the scientists who discovered a way the biomaterial could be reduced to a nano-particle capable of infiltrating the coronary artery. Spang centrifuged the hydrogel's liquid precursor, allowing larger particles to be sifted away and only nano-sized particles to remain. Before being freeze-dried, the material underwent a sterilization process. When sterile water is added to the finished biomaterial powder, the biomaterial may be injected into a coronary artery in the heart. Many biomedical experts agree that this discovery is revolutionary to the field, and could potentially save millions of lives.
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