CARDIOPATCH
A European project called CARDIOPATCH, composred by partners from Spain, France, and Portugal, has developed a therapy consisting of a stem cell patch for non-invasive repair of heart tissue damaged by myocardial infarction. According to the team behind the project, cardiovascular and circulatory diseases such as this are the number one cause of death in the world.
Treatment for these types of diseases is a challenge for the scientific community, as common procedures such as device implantation or cardiac resynchronisation, do not avoid the risk of death or re-admission. The CARDIOPATCH team says this is why heart transplantation becomes the only real curative alternative.
The solution, which is based on cellular regenerative medicine and 3D printing technologies, was presented in Pamplona, Spain, on Tuesday April 18 after three years of research.
“Our patch has shown therapeutic potential in early ‘in vivo’ tests. In addition, we have designed a novel 3D device for its cultivation and transport and a tool that allows its minimally invasive implantation in the patient,” said Dr. Felipe Prósper, coordinator of the project and director of the Cell Therapy Area of the Clínica Universidad de Navarra, one of the nine partners of the initiative.
The partners involved in CARDIOPATCH carried out processes aimed at increasing the therapeutic potential of the stem cells in the patch, and successfully generated a collagen membrane with cardioprotective factors, as well as developing and evaluating different technologies and protocols to produce therapeutic products for cardiac regenerative medicine.
The project has seen the design and validation of a 3D printed bioreactor to grow and transport the patch, as well as a rollable device for minimally invasive implantation in the heart. The team says the efficacy of the CARDIOPATCH therapy model has been proven with favourable results in preclinical experiments in rodents.
“The results have been positive and show the possibilities that regenerative medicine opens up for finding effective treatments for this type of heart disease. Therefore, it is essential to continue investing and promoting research in these areas to find a definitive solution,” said Dr. Prósper.
Researchers at MIT recently developed a procedure to 3D print custom robotic heart replicas to help doctors tailor treatments to patients’ specific heart form and function
