FGF-4 Helps Fix Damaged Hearts - Brief Article

Applied Genetics News, April, 2000

A placebo-controlled preclinical study led by the H. Kirk Hammond, chief scientist of Collateral Therapeutics (9360 Towne Center Dr., San Diego, CA 92121; Tel: 619/824-6500, Fax: 619/ 824-6563), and M. Dan McKirnan, associate director of research, found that intracoronary delivery of the human gene Fibroblast Growth Factor-4 (FGF-4) may be useful in the treatment of heart failure. The research has been published in the journal Cardiac and Vascular Regeneration.

Heart failure is a condition in which the heart has enlarged and its pumping ability has decreased. The most common cause of heart failure in the U.S. is coronary artery disease. Heart failure is the leading cause of hospitalization for elderly patients.

The blinded placebo-controlled study used pacing-induced heart failure in pigs, a preclinical model that has been used by scientists for decades to study heart disease. The researchers measured heart function before and sequentially after intracoronary delivery of saline (control) or human FGF-4 expressed in an adenovirus vector. The researchers found that the gene-treated group showed significantly improved regional cardiac function and also experienced a reduction in the size of the heart over the three-week study period.

"If these results translate favorably to humans, it would represent a significant advancement in treating this serious disease," says Hammond.

The FGF-4 gene, which promotes angiogenesis, has been exclusively licensed from New York University by Collateral Therapeutics. Collateral Therapeutics is also using FGF-4 gene therapy to develop a treatment for patients with clinical coronary artery disease and recently announced positive preliminary results from a phase I/II trial in patients with angina.