Grant: Project Grant

Heart disease is one of the leading causes of death in Canada. Currently available treatments offer effective relief of symptoms but unfortunately cannot provide a permanent cure. Therefore, new research is needed to find a permanent solution for this disease. Therapies using adult stem cells have recently come up as a new option for the treatment of heart disease. These stem cells are found in the body and participate in the normal healing process after an injury. They also have the ability to help repair the heart after a heart attack. In particular, allogeneic (donor-derived) mesenchymal stem cells (allo-MSCs) from the bone marrow of young and healthy donors are considered to be the favourite cell type for heart repair. These cells are easy to collect in large numbers from consenting adult donors and often perform better than cells from older patients suffering from heart disease. Furthermore, these cells have been shown to evade the immune system, meaning no medications are needed to prevent the body from rejecting these cells. However, outcomes of recent animal studies and clinical trials have been disappointing. Many have reported that although allo-MSCs therapy was initially effective in repairing the heart after transplantation, these cells are still eventually rejected by the host immune system, ultimately reducing the benefits of these therapies. Therefore, new strategies are needed to prevent rejection of transplanted allo-MSCs and bring its benefits to patients living with heart disease. The research proposed here will focus on understanding the reasons why transplanted stem cells are rejected in the heart and how that can be prevented. Results from this research will lead to development of new stem cell treatments for repairing the heart, by preventing rejection and improving survival of transplanted stem cells in heart. In the long-term, this research will help improve the quality of life of patients with heart disease using stem cell therapy.