It is almost impossible for an injured heart to fully mend itself. Within minutes of being deprived of oxygen – as happens during a heart attack when arteries to the heart are blocked – the heart’s muscle cells start to die.
Dr Sanjay Sinah leads a team of stem cell biologists in the Cambridge Stem Cell Institute. Over the past five years, with funding from the British Heart Foundation, they have been working with materials scientists Professors Ruth Cameron and Serena Best and biochemist Professor Richard Farndale on an innovative technique for growing heart patches in the laboratory – with the aim of using these to repair weakened cardiac tissue.
"We are recreating a tissue that has all the components we see in an organ, where the cells start talking together in mysterious and wonderful ways, and they start to work together as they do in the body"
- Sanjay Sinha
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