Grant: Project Grant

Heart failure occurs when damaged heart muscle cells cannot pump enough blood and is the cause of over 30% of deaths worldwide. Heart muscle cells, called cardiomyocytes, have almost no ability to replace themselves. Promising treatments involve replacing dead cardiomyocytes with live cardiomyocytes, either as cells or as engineered (lab-grown) tissues. Co-Investigator Radisic's group has developed a new type of tissue from cardiomyocytes, called "Biowires". These can be used as a substitute for heart muscle tissue in research, for example, to test how well new heart drugs work or to test whether other drugs are toxic to heart tissues, a major reason for drug recall. A critical obstacle to the use of cardiomyocytes and Biowires is the inability to store them and keep them alive until needed. Cryopreservation uses temperatures as low as that of liquid nitrogen (-196 °C) to preserve biological materials and is the only way to store mammalian (including human) cells and tissues long term. Cryopreservation is used routinely in medicine; cryopreserved stem cells are used to treat blood disorders and cryopreserved heart valves to replace faulty valves (heart valves are not made of cardiomyocytes). Despite the need for cardiomyocytes, there has been no comprehensive research on cryopreserving them. This study will develop procedures to cryopreserve heart muscle cells and engineered heart tissues in such a way that live and functioning cells are recovered when thawed. Principal Investigators Elliott and McGann will use their cryobiology and cryopreservation expertise to carry out the first comprehensive cryobiological study of cardiomyocytes with the outcome of making cardiac cells and tissues available on demand. This collaboration between Canada's leading cryobiology centre at the University of Alberta and Canada's leading tissue-engineering centre at the University of Toronto will advance Canada's international reputation in regenerative medicine and biotechnology.