Member News
10th February 2011
A zebrafish's ability to heal its own heart is behind a new and ambitious campaign by the British Heart Foundation in its 50th year.
Tuesday night saw the parliamentary launch of this latest campaign, aptly titled 'Mending broken hearts'.
The campaign is an ambitious drive to fund a programme of research into regenerative medicine, ultimately to find a cure for heart failure.
This is where the zebrafish comes in, as not only are they transparent early on in life, which makes it easier for scientists to conduct research into how their heart and blood vessels grow, but unlike a human if their heart is damaged, they are able to repair it in a matter of weeks.
Hosting the event on behalf of the British Heart Foundation, former MP and newly appointed peer, Lord Willis of Knaresborough spoke of his amazement that the tiny zebrafish, combined with the development of stem cell techniques, holds such a "massive future for regenerative medicine".
Professor Peter Weissberg, medical director at the BHF, told the audience, "Human beings also have the ability to mend their own heart, it is just that they have forgotten how to do it, somewhere in evolution," he said.
As well as looking to the future, the reception was also an opportunity for the BHF to look back over its 50-year legacy in the field of cardiovascular research.
"In the 1960s, we didn't even know how heart attacks occurred. Huge progress has been made since then," Weissberg said.
Digesting the figures from 1961 till 2009, deaths from cardiovascular disease have nearly halved.
"Fewer people are dying from heart attacks, but people are still having them, which means more people are surviving heart attacks," said Weissberg.
As a consequence there are a quarter of a million people in the UK living with heart failure, and with an ageing society this is on the increase.
Currently drugs can help people struggling with a debilitating heart condition, but Weissberg thinks "science is ready" to reverse heart conditions.
"Hopefully within five to ten years' time we will have helped our scientists reach the point where we have actually been able to reverse the damage caused by a heart attack, whilst continuing our work on preventing heart attacks in the first place," he said.
Trevor Fernandes, a BHF advocate who suffered two heart attacks in six years and is now living with heart failure, said the 'Mending broken hearts' appeal can allow him to "look forward to a more promising future".
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