One of the leading causes of mortality worldwide—also known as a myocardial infarction—heart attacks account for 18 million deaths annually. According to a study, COVID-19 will cause these numbers to increase in the upcoming years.
Researchers at the University of Notre Dame investigated how using human tissue models outside of the body might help in detection and treatment of heart attacks. The journal Biophysics Reviews reported the study’s findings.
Myocardial infarction happens when plaque in a significant coronary artery slows and obstructs blood flow to the heart, depriving it of oxygen, killing cells, and causing substantial tissue damage. Death may result from this, or some areas of the heart may develop scar tissue, making them harder to beat in the future.
Medication for Heart attacks
Animal models are typically used in laboratories to study current treatments and medications for heart attacks and many other illnesses, including cancer. However, only one out of every ten therapies that are effective in animal testing prove to be effective in human clinical settings. Additionally, there are sporadic but significant negative effects in people that are not seen in animals.
According to author Pinar Zorlutuna, “Although animal models offer an overall systemic perspective of how an organism might respond to a sick situation, it is not the exact response that a human tissue would produce.” “If you use both an animal model and a human model, you have a better chance of identifying disparities between the two early on, before moving through with a clinical trial and failing there.”
Researchers may explore the effects of heart attacks and the management of fibrotic tissue outside the body using in vitro human models. They imitate natural development, structural organisation, regeneration, and disease progression using organoids, three-dimensional multicellular models that resemble organs. Organoids are produced from stem cells.
Meanwhile, bioprinting enables the layer-by-layer construction of cardiac tissue, while microfluidic devices manage cell positioning and fluid flow to function as the heart on a chip.
Zorlutuna stated that “these models are crucial to advance what we are doing in preclinical research.” “They can aid in the quicker, safer, and more effective delivery of treatments to more patients.”
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Because the human heart is such a complicated organ, there are still certain difficulties in developing in vitro cardiac tissue models, according to author Gozde Basara. The next stage would be to create larger constructions employing mature cardiac cells and rapid production techniques.
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