Heart disease is the leading cause of death in the U.S. and the world, and damage to the heart is hard to repair - often requiring surgery. But what if other treatments like gene therapy could offer new, less invasive approaches to heart care?
That's why Duke biomedical engineer Nenad Bursac is growing beating human heart tissue in a lab: to test these therapies. Using these patches of heart tissue as testbeds, his lab and collaborators can experiment. For example, the lab is testing a gene therapy that repairs heart tissue damaged from heart attacks. The effort has recently demonstrated positive results in nonhuman primates .
With funding from the American Heart Association and the National Institutes of Health, Bursac has been able to realize a lifelong goal: combining engineering with medicine to push innovation in heart care. The U.S., he says, is a unique place that attracts researchers from around the world like himself.
Working together and federal funding is critical to supporting continued improvements to health and wellness for America and the world. Learn more about the lifesaving work Duke researchers conduct every day at: https://today.duke.edu/research
