- Category: Science & Technology
By Nikki Murfitt - 26th October 2009 Dean Third used to look forward to weekends spent refereeing local football matches, and outings with his young family. But now even walking to the end of the road can leave him breathless and exhausted. For the past four years, the father of four has suffered from dilated cardiomyopathy (DCM), a disease of the heart muscle which causes it to enlarge, affecting its ability to pump blood to the arteries.
The condition afflicts 12,000 people in the UK, and for most sufferers the cause is unknown. If uncontrolled it can be fatal, and patients must adhere strictly to a regime of medication.
However, Dean has just taken part in a BBC Horizon TV programme where he discovered that medics are on the brink of a major breakthrough, meaning conditions such as his could be cured by making new hearts from the patient's own stem cells.
Often referred to as the body's 'building blocks', stem cells have the remarkable potential to develop into many different cell types in the body during early life and growth. In addition, in many tissues they serve as a sort of internal repair system, dividing without limit to replenish other cells as they die out.
Breakthrough: Dean Third studies a rat's heart built using stem cells, seen in close-up below.
When a stem cell divides, each new cell has the ability either to remain a stem cell or become another type of cell with a more specialised function, such as a brain cell, a red blood cell or, as Dean learnt, healthy heart cells.
The documentary team examined the cases of three patients with chronic conditions to discover whether, within their lifetimes, they might be cured.
Dean visited Dr Anthony Mathur, from University College London, to witness the world's first trial using stem cells taken from bone marrow. The cells are injected into the muscles of the heart to regenerate damaged tissue.
He also traveled to Minnesota in America to visit laboratories carrying out research to produce new hearts using stem cells.
Although the research has so far been used only to produce a new rat's heart, experts believe the prospects for the future are limitless.
