Genetic breakthrough could make pacemakers obsolete: Australian researchers

0 Comments | AFP, February, 2005

SYDNEY (AFP) — Australian scientists said pacemakers could be obsolete within a decade after researchers managed to revive heart tissue withered by cardiac arrests.

The Sydney-based Children's Medical Research Institute (CMRI) said the breakthrough involved injecting a virus containing two of the patients' own genes into the scar tissue caused by heart attacks known as fibroblasts.

CMRI head of gene therapy Ian Alexander said the process revived electrical pathways in the fibroblasts, allowing the scar tissue to once again "twitch" like normal heart muscle cells in response to the cardiac system's natural electrical pulses.

"It means we can take two genes and we can say to these scar tissue cells 'we want you to take on the properties of heart muscle cell...