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A collaborative team of researchers from NUI Galway, Harvard University, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Trinity, RCSI and AMBER, has developed a novel implantable tool that can deliver therapy directly to the heart multiple times from a port under the skin.
Additional scarring and remodelling can occur after heart attack which can lead to heart failure. Multiple therapies are being explored to prevent this disease progression including those using drugs, proteins and adult stem cells.
The problems with delivering these treatments currently are that they don’t stay at their intended site on the beating heart, can cause toxic side effects, and often require multiple doses to elicit a clinical effect. A group of investigators recently designed a device- Therepi that can be placed directly on the heart, comprising of a reservoir for drugs or cells that can be refilled multiple times from a port under the skin.
This allows localised, refillable, heart-targeted therapy delivery. The researchers showed in a pre-clinical model of myocardial infarction (heart attack) that this device can increase heart function over four weeks when stem cells are repeatedly delivered to the reservoir.
This system has vast potential for advancing research as a tool to characterise optimal targeted drug dosing. Additionally, the study describes the first step towards translating a device to the clinic that allows multiple non-invasive therapy replenishments over time.
Therepi is a medical device that allows keyhole surgical placement of a depot or pouch to the outside surface of the heart, and this pouch can be topped-up with drugs or stem cells using a port that sits just below the skin.
haleplushearty.org