Scientists from Northwestern University and the University of California San Diego have created a powerful new injectable treatment that could prevent heart failure after a heart attack.
This promising therapy uses specially designed protein-like polymers, called PLPs, that help the heart heal by stopping harmful proteins from interfering with the recovery process.
The researchers first tested the treatment in lab-grown heart cells, where it reduced damage caused by stress.
They then moved to animal studies. After a single, low-dose injection into rats that had suffered heart attacks, the therapy reduced inflammation, prevented cell death, improved heart function, and even encouraged the growth of new blood vessels.
Their results were published in the journal Advanced Materials.
Heart attacks are a leading cause of heart failure, a condition that affects millions of people and often leads to death within five years.
Although treatments exist to reopen blocked arteries, they don’t completely prevent the long-term heart damage that leads to heart failure. This new therapy aims to fill that gap.
The scientists focused on two proteins inside heart cells: Keap1 and Nrf2. Nrf2 is protective, helping cells survive stress and inflammation.
But Keap1 blocks Nrf2 from doing its job by keeping it out of the cell’s nucleus, where it activates healing genes. To fix this, the researchers developed PLPs with multiple “arms” that tightly bind to Keap1, pulling it away and freeing Nrf2 to protect the heart.
The therapy is based on earlier work by the team, where they invented the PLP platform to mimic natural antibodies inside cells.
In this study, their specially engineered PLPs worked at very low doses and continued to help the heart for weeks after a single injection.
The technology is being commercialized by Grove Biopharma, a company spun out from Northwestern University that recently secured $30 million in funding.
Researchers are now expanding the PLP platform to tackle other diseases, such as cancer and neurodegenerative conditions, by targeting difficult-to-reach proteins inside cells.
This breakthrough offers hope not only for people recovering from heart attacks but also for the future of drug development. By using PLPs to target disease mechanisms that were once considered “undruggable,” scientists could open new doors for treating a wide range of serious illnesses.
The study was supported by the National Institutes of Health’s National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute.
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