The DISCOVER I Study
Research type
Research Study
Full title
The Characteristics and Distribution of Cardiac Stem Cells in Adult Human with Normal Left Ventricular Function
IRAS ID
120504
Contact name
Prakash Punjabi
Contact email
Sponsor organisation
Joint Research Compliance Office, Imperial College London
Research summary
Human stem cells are a group of biological cells that divide and differentiate into diverse specialized cell types and can self-renew to produce more stem cells. These cells play important role in tissue self-repairing after injury, for example, stem cells in the skin are responsible for wound healing after an operation.
In the past 15 years, compelling evidence has accumulated suggesting that the human heart contains stem cells and has regenerative potential. However, it is still not clear why these stem cells cannot adequately repair the human heart after a heart attack (Myocardial infarction, MI). One of reasons could be that the human heart only contains enough stem cells for self-renewing but doesn’t have enough stem cells to repair a large damage post heart attack. Recent research work has shown that stem cells can be safely isolated from small heart muscle biopsy samples and be expanded in numbers outside the human body. Injecting these stem cells back to the damaged heart muscle in the same patient could potentially help improve the heart function.
In this study we will take small heart muscle samples during surgery to find out which heart chambers contain more stem cells. We will also compare the self-repairing ability of stem cells isolated from different chambers of hearts with normal pumping function. We believe the results of this study will provide us with baseline information on heart stem cells and will allow us to compare the number and function of stem cells between healthy and diseased hearts in the future.REC name
London - Harrow Research Ethics Committee
REC reference
13/LO/0457
Date of REC Opinion
28 May 2013
REC opinion
Further Information Favourable Opinion