A New Biogel Claims to Repair Heart Attack Damage

Researchers at the University of Manchester have invented a body-safe gel that can be injected into a living heart to support the growth of new tissue. Cardiac arrest occurs about once every five minutes in the United Kingdom and once every 36 seconds here in the United States. While more people survive these days than ever before, each instance results in significant damage that can lead to future health complications.

The heart has a hard time healing on its own; after about a week it stops recruiting resources from the rest of the body, leaving a large portion of the damage unresolved. This means it’s up to the medical field to find ways to boost cell regeneration and promote the growth of healthy tissue. Stem cell therapy is perhaps the most promising strategy to this end, yet it still leaves much to be desired: doctors inject stem cells from a donor or the patient’s own body into the patient’s heart with the goal of reducing fatal arrest in the future. But an extremely small percentage of those stem cells actually “stick.” With a gel like the one just announced, the cells have a better chance of staying in place.

The gel is made of peptides, or chains of amino acids that make up proteins. Thanks to the flexibility of these peptides’ bonds, scientists can choose whether to use the gel as a liquid (by putting the gel under stress) or a solid (by removing stress). The gel is injected into the heart in its liquid form, then returned to a more solid substance as it helps new cells graft.

So far, the researchers have used the gel in healthy mice to test its viability in living hearts. They’ve also proven the gel’s effectiveness by using it to grow reprogrammed heart cells in a dish for three weeks at a time. Next they plan on testing it in mice that have already endured cardiac arrest.

“While it’s still early days, the potential this new technology has in helping to repair failing hearts after a heart attack is huge,” said lead researcher Katherine King, a PhD student at the University of Manchester, in the institution’s statement. “We’re confident that this gel will be an effective option for future cell-based therapies to help the damaged heart to regenerate.”

Continue reading

Pfizer Claims New COVID-19 Vaccine 90 Percent Effective

There have been a number of COVID-19 vaccines in development in the United States and around the world, and one of them has shown some very positive preliminary results in its Phase 3 trial. One particular vaccine developed by Pfizer and German firm BioNTech appears to be more than 90 percent effective in preventing symptomatic…

Intel Rocket Lake Leaks Claim the Core i9-11900K Will Be a $600 CPU

Intel may be raising prices with Rocket Lake if new leaks are accurate. Bold move, but with the current shortage, possibly a smart one.

States Claim Google’s ‘Privacy Sandbox’ Violates Antitrust Law

Google finds itself in an impossible position. Privacy advocates have long demanded Google follow Microsoft and Mozilla's lead in purging tracking cookies from Chrome. Now that it's doing so, state attorneys general have filed an amended antitrust complaint that uses the so-called "Privacy Sandbox" as ammunition against the company.

ARM Founder Claims Nvidia Will Compete Unfairly, Fails to Explain Why

ARM's co-founder is claiming that Nvidia's Grace is proof the company will abuse its power if allowed to buy ARM, but he hasn't really explained how.