A new £50m Centre aims to develop the first therapies to stimulate heart repair and regeneration in patients with heart disease.
The Centre, co-funded by the Medical Research Council (MRC) and British Heart Foundation (BHF), will build on the huge progress made in genomics – allowing the genetic basis of many diseases and processes to be identified – and advances in genome editing and other gene therapies.
The MRC/BHF Centre of Research Excellence in Advanced Cardiac Therapies (REACT), co-led by the Universities of Edinburgh, Oxford and King’s College London, is one of two Centres of Research Excellence to each receive up to £50 million over 14 years.
The other centre, called the MRC Centre of Research Excellence in Therapeutic Genomics, aims to make rare genetic disorders treatable by enabling the mass production of affordable cutting-edge gene therapies.
Industry collaboration
The researchers, supported by Edinburgh Innovations, will work closely with the Cell and Gene Therapy Catapult and with companies including AstraZeneca, AskBio and Batavia Biosciences to collaborate on tasks such as screening libraries for therapy targets and accessing gene therapy delivery technologies.
They will also work with Syncona, a large venture capital firm in London, to drive further investment and progress toward application of the technology in patients.
Professor Andy Baker, of the University’s Centre for Cardiovascular Science, co-director of REACT, said:
We’re building an advanced therapy ecosystem to drive translation from pre-clinical into clinical trials all in one place. Working with industry and venture capital we will also train the next generation of scientists in how to get therapies out of the lab and into clinical practice. ”
Tissue repair
Scientists aim to discover and target key processes within the heart tissue, which can stimulate the proliferation of heart muscle cells, encourage the growth of new blood vessels, and counteract the formation of scars following a heart attack.
Many of these regenerative processes have been identified as occurring naturally in the hearts of other animals, including salamanders and fish, and even in human infants.
The Centre aims to develop the first therapies which can reawaken these regenerative processes within the cells of damaged human hearts.
Professor Mauro Giacca, a REACT co-director from King’s College London, said:
There is a tremendous need for new therapies for heart failure and we’re now at an exciting moment when the technologies have really progressed to an extent where we can realistically start to develop gene therapies. This could be transformational for heart disease treatment. ”
Cell function
The team will use therapies based on nucleic acids – the building blocks of our genetic material DNA and RNA. These will include mRNA, similar to the cutting-edge techniques in the Covid-19 vaccines, and small regulatory RNAs. These will be identified through systematic, high throughput genetic screening.
The project will use viral and non-viral based technologies to deliver these therapeutic DNAs and RNAs directly into heart cells. Once inside, they will alter the cell’s functions, for example to switch something on or off, or to make a protein.
