This image shows the connection between a smart heart patch and the heart of a mouse, captured using a microscope. On the right (in red), you can see damaged heart tissue with blue fibers — these are collagen fibers that appear after a heart attack. On the left (in pink), you see the heart patch, made of a special biomaterial that uses the heartbeat to help the heart recover. In the corner, there’s a zoomed-in view of the patch’s translucent fibers — the key to its smart, healing properties.
A team of Portuguese researchers from the Institute for Research and Innovation in Health at the University of Porto (i3S) and the Center for Neuroscience and Cell Biology at the University of Coimbra (CNC-UC) has developed an intelligent heart patch to be applied after myocardial infarction. Its structure is made up of a special biomaterial (piezoelectric) that uses the heartbeat to improve its electrical function and aid recovery after myocardial infarction. The results of this new therapeutic strategy were recently published in the journal Materials Today Bio.
The challenge came from the CNC-UC team, which is part of the Centre for Innovative Biomedicine and Biotechnology (CiBB), led by researcher Lino Ferreira: “The in vitro tests with these adhesives that release an electrical charge were very promising and we decided to try them on animal models in the context of myocardial infarction to assess their effectiveness and safety.” In this context, they began a partnership with researcher Diana Nascimento, from i3S and the School of Medicine and Biomedical Sciences (ICBAS), whose experience in animal models has allowed them to advance new therapeutic approaches for the heart.
The researcher explains that “there are few biomaterials designed to improve the conductivity of the heart and those that do exist do so passively. This patch is unique because, when placed on the surface of the heart, it takes advantage of the heartbeat to generate new electrical impulses”. In this work, adds Diana Nascimento, “we investigated its potential to improve the heart's response to myocardial infarction, one of the main causes of death worldwide”.
Luís Monteiro, who obtained his PhD in the Doctoral Programme in Experimental Biology and Biomedicine at the University of Coimbra, and first author of the article, stresses that “tests on mice have shown that piezoelectric biomaterials improve the electrical conduction of the heart and help it recover after a heart attack. Furthermore, in tests on pig hearts, the application of this device did not interfere with the normal function of the heart, attesting to its safety”.
In the future, adds Lino Ferreira, “this innovative therapeutic strategy could possibly minimize the occurrence of arrhythmias, one of the main complications of myocardial infarction, which can be fatal.” The two teams of researchers are already exploring other functionalities of this intelligent biomaterial in the context of a European project in which they are participating, REBORN, namely to combine the beneficial effects of this biomaterial with its potential for controlled drug release to promote the regeneration of cardiac tissue.
