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At the moment, there's no cure for a broken heart. Once your heart muscle is damaged by a heart attack, it can never fully recover. But there is hope. Your support will help to fund groundbreaking research that could begin to literally 'mend broken hearts' in as little as ten years time.
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Beneficiaries
Situation
When we have a heart attack, a portion of our heart muscle is damaged or dies. Right now, we can't repair it. Damage to our hearts is permanent. For some people this can lead to heart failure, and over three quarters of a million people in the UK are living with it every day. Chronic tiredness, shortness of breath, palpitations, swollen ankles, lack of appetite, anxiousness and depression are just some of the symptoms previously active people struggle with for the rest of their lives.
Solution
Heart regeneration is possible in nature. We know this because if a zebrafish damages it's heart, it is able to regrow. If we can find and harness the key genes and chemical messengers, in the right cells, at the right time, we could find a way to help our hearts fix themselves. Just like a broken bone will heal. We hope to invest in world-leading stem cell research and developmental biology to see whether we can repair or replace damaged or dead heart tissue with new, healthy tissue.