Doctors have developed a new technique allowing the heart to restore blood circulation shortly after a heart attack.
Experts from Harvard University and the Karolinska Institute have learned to cope with the effects of heart attacks by injecting synthetic RNA. To do this, experiments were conducted on mice: first, the scientists artificially induced heart attack in mice, and then they injected synthetic matrix RNA necessary for the production of the VEGF-A protein. This protein is a factor stimulating the growth of blood vessels.
Experiments have shown that if we inject mRNA not later than 48 hours after the heart attack, the heart stem cells give rise to new blood vessels, and blood flow to the myocardium is restored. In the future, the researchers plan to test the technique on larger animals, and then go on to develop techniques suitable for humans.
