June 2017

DZHK researchers from the University of Göttingen have succeeded in manufacturing the first so-called “heart plaster” or engineered heart muscle (EHM) for the reconstruction of lost cardiac muscle tissue in heart failure patients. Using innovative and individualized 3-D printing techniques, they were able to manufacture beating heart plasters in the size and shape required by patients. The EHM exhibits properties of the adult heart that were previously not achievable in the laboratory. These include, among others, an increase in cardiac force when the heart rate is increased - a mechanism detected in all healthy individuals which is lost in heart failure. These natural tissue properties make EHM particularly attractive both for direct application as a heart plaster and as a test system for the development and testing of new pharmaceuticals without animal experiments. In the current study, the manufacturing conditions for EHM were developed to such an extent that for the first time testing of EHM in patients with heart failure within the scope of controlled clinical trials seems possible.