Reviving Cells After a Heart Attack
Published:22 Oct.2020 Source:Harvard John A. Paulson School of Engineering and Applied Sciences
Extracellular vesicles (EVs) -- nanometer sized messengers that travel between cells to deliver cues and cargo -- are promising tools for the next generation of therapies for everything from autoimmune and neurodegenerative diseases to cancer and tissue injury. EVs derived from stem cells have already been shown to help heart cells recover after a heart attack, but exactly how they help and whether the beneficial effect is specific to EVs derived from stem cells has remained a mystery.
Now, researchers from the Harvard John A. Paulson School of Engineering and Applied Sciences (SEAS) have unraveled potential mechanisms behind the healing power of EVs and demonstrated their capacity to not only revive cells after a heart attack but keep cells functioning while deprived of oxygen during a heart attack. The researchers demonstrated this functionality in human tissue using a heart-on-a-chip with embedded sensors that continuously tracked the contractions of the tissue.