Cardiac regeneration could lead us to create bio-artificial hearts obtained from decellularized hearts and recomposed again with adult stem cells. This is the aim of the researcher and chief of cardiology at the Hospital Gregorio Maranon, Madrid, Francisco Fernández Avilés, who explained their latest advances in a new session of the seminars of IDIBELL on 13 May.

Currently, his lab has 18 human heart matrixes that have been stripped of all its cells. “The challenge is to repopulate these matrixes with cells capable of differentiating into an environment as close as possible to the conditions of embryonic development, achieved in a bioreactor” explained Fernández Avilés.

The researcher has defended the cardiac regenerative cell therapy in patients with acute cardiopathies in which the results of several studies conducted in heterogeneous ways (with different techniques and with different types of cells: bone marrow, adipose tissue …) show that it obtains greater benefits than current therapies. In this sense, Fernández Avilés has announced the participation of his group in a pan-European clinical trial involving more than 3,000 patients.

However, in chronic patients, “the regenerative capacity of cells seems to be insufficient to restore the functioning of the affected areas and it is needed a transplant, which can only be realized by 5% of patients who need it”.

The procurement of Bioartificial organs, said Fernandez Aviles, “would be a huge revolution because cardiovascular diseases are the leading cause of death in men in the world. If we can get a new organ from a pig heart inert patient’s own cells, we would end up with the shortage of donors and rejection problems. “