Research needs great leap forward

The British Heart Foundation (BHF) said regenerative medicine research could cure heart failure – a condition most commonly caused by a heart attack, explaining more than 750,000 people in the UK are living with heart failure.

Launching its Mending Broken Hearts appeal, the charity said stem cell research and developmental biology could discover how to repair or replace damaged heart muscle.

Professor Peter Weissberg, medical director at the BHF, said: “More people are surviving heart attacks due to the huge advances we’ve made in cardiology, but that isn’t the end of the story.

“We want to advance the science so that when someone has a heart attack, doctors have the tools to help repair the heart.”