08/14/2025
Heart damage is no longer permanent ❤️
A new bioengineered heart patch can replace dead heart tissue and restore strength after heart attacks.
In 2017, biomedical engineers at Duke University developed the first fully functional artificial human heart muscle patch large enough to cover damage caused by a heart attack.
Made from human pluripotent stem cells, the 16-square-centimeter patch contains multiple types of heart cells — including muscle, structural, and blood vessel cells — that work together to mimic the electrical, mechanical, and structural properties of a healthy adult heart.
This breakthrough addresses a major limitation of current therapies, which can ease symptoms but cannot replace dead heart muscle that is lost permanently after a heart attack.
The large, engineered patches could one day be implanted over damaged tissue, restoring strength and electrical signaling while promoting repair in surrounding cells.
Scaling up to a functional, large patch required years of experimentation to perfect the right mix of cells, growth factors, and culture conditions. The team discovered that gently rocking the developing tissue dramatically improved its strength and maturity, producing patches five to eight cells thick in just five weeks. Tests showed that these patches survive, function, and integrate with heart tissue in small animal models, with next steps aimed at testing in pigs and developing vascularized, immune-compatible versions for human use. While full integration with the human heart remains a challenge, this achievement marks a critical milestone toward regenerative therapies that could reverse heart damage and prevent heart failure.
Source: Shadrin, I.Y., Allen, B.W., Qian, Y., Jackman, C.P., Carlson, A.L., Juhas, M.E., & Bursac, N. (2017). Cardiopatch platform enables maturation and scale-up of human pluripotent stem cell-derived engineered heart tissues. Nature Communications, 8, 1825.
