Galway Bay fm newsroom - Researchers at NUI Galway have developed an injectable hydrogel that could significantly improve outcomes for heart attack patients.
The team at CÚRAM, the SFI Research Centre for Medical Devices, worked in collaboration from researchers in Spain.
The project developed an injectable hydrogel that could help repair and prevent further damage to the heart muscle following a heart attack.
Heart disease is a leading cause of death due to the irreversible damage caused to cardiac muscle during a heart attack.
The team at NUI Galway, working with a team at the University of Valladolid in Span, developed and tested an elastin-based hydrogel derived from naturally occurring bio-material in the body.
It mimics the environment around the heart following a heart attack and is customised to have the ability to protect and promote regeneration of the cardiac tissue.
Preclinical studies showed that when the gel was injected into heart muscle shortly after a heart attack, there was less scarring of the tissue, increased generation of new blood vessels in the area, and increased survival of certain heart cells.
The team says the next step will be the development of a prototype delivery system for the hydrogel, for use in clinical settings.
