Cardiac Repair

Research Leader: Professor Stephen Worthley

Heart failure resulting from weakened heart muscle remains a major cause of ill health and death in our society, despite improvements in current clinical therapies. Two major types of heart failure exist. Ischaemic heart failure makes up about 60% of cases and is caused by narrowing of coronary arteries, depriving the heart muscle of necessary blood supply.

Non-ischaemic heart failure accounts for the remainder of cases and has various causes including viruses, certain drugs and toxins, and some hereditary and metabolic diseases.

The Cardiac Repair group has researched how different types of stem cells taken from bone marrow have been studied as a way of regenerating and repairing injured cardiac tissue. Mesenchymal stem cells (MSC) are a rare type of cell found in adult bone marrow that have the ability to divide and renew themselves and the potential to develop into different types of mature cells, including bone, cartilage, blood vessel cells and heart cells.