Matteo Pasquali (left) and Mehdi Razavi check a thread of carbon nanotube fibre. They are using the fibres as electrical bridges to restore conductivity to damaged hearts. (Courtesy: Texas Heart Institute)
Scientists at Texas Heart Institute (THI) and Rice University have used biocompatible fibres made of carbon nanotubes (CNTs) as electrical bridges to restore conductivity to damaged hearts. By sewing the fibres directly into damaged cardiac tissue in animal models, they could deliver the electrical signals needed to keep the animals’ hearts beating (Circ. Arrhythm Electrophysiol. 10.1161/CIRCEP.119.007256).
“Instead of shocking and defibrillating, we are actually correcting diseased conduction of the largest major pumping chamber of the heart by creating a bridge to bypass and conduct over a scarred area of a damaged heart,” explains THI’s Mehdi Razavi, who co-led the study with Matteo Pasquali from Rice.
“Today there is no technology that treats the underlying cause of the number one cause of sudden death – ventricular arrhythmias,” Razavi adds. “These arrhythmias are caused by the disorganized firing of impulses from the heart’s lower chambers and are challenging to treat in patients after a heart attack or with scarred heart tissue due to such other conditions as congestive heart failure or dilated cardiomyopathy.”
And while many effective antiarrhythmic drugs are available, they are often contraindicated in patients after a heart attack. What’s really needed therapeutically, is a way to increase conduction.
