Engineers at Brown University, United States, have created a nanopatch for the heart that could restore areas that have been damaged, such as from a heart attack. The nanopatch, comprised of carbon nanofibers and a polymer, was shown, in tests, to regenerate natural heart tissue cells, as well as neurons – meaning that the dead region of the heart can be brought back to life. David Stout, a graduate student in the School of Engineering at Brown and the lead author of the paper published in Acta Biomaterialia, said, “This whole idea is to put something where dead tissue is to help regenerate it, so that you eventually have a healthy heart.” The approach could help millions of people who suffer from new heart attacks linked to weakness caused by the scarred cardiac muscle from a previous heart attack. According to the American Heart Association, a third of women and a fifth of men who have experienced a heart attack will have another one within six years. The carbon nanofibers, because they are excellent conductors of electrons, can perform the kind of electrical connections the heart needs to keep a steady beat. When combined with the polymer to form a mesh, the substance is like “a black Band Aid,” said Stout. Tests showed that five times as many heart-tissue cells colonized on the surface of the mesh than on a control sample consisting of the polymer only.
