UK to Begin Clinical Trials for Gene Therapy to Treat Heart Failure

Two new clinical trials looking into the use of gene therapy to treat heart failure are about to begin in the U.K., the British Heart Foundation announced Tuesday.

The therapy involved adding DNA directly to heart cells to correct a disorder in the heart, helping people with heart disease live a healthy life.

"Heart failure affects more than three quarters of a million people across the UK. Once heart failure starts, it progresses into a vicious cycle where the pumping becomes weaker and weaker, as each heart cell simply cannot respond to the increased demand," said Dr. Alexander Lyon, from Imperial College London and Consultant Cardiologist at the Royal Brompton Hospital. "Our goal is to fight back against heart failure by targeting and reversing some of the critical molecular changes arising in the heart when it fails."

Lyon is the lead investigator of both the clinical trials, according to a news release.

The first trial, called CUPID2, will begin in the next few weeks at the Cardiovascular Biomedical Research Unit at the Royal Brompton Hospital and will involve 200 patients. The trial will try to find whether or not increasing the level of a key protein in heart muscles called SERCA2 has any effect on the patients who have heart failure.

The second trial, called SERCA-LVAD, will start recruiting patients this summer. The trial will assess the effectiveness of the therapy in 24 patients who are fitted with mechanical heart pumps, or the left ventricular assist devices (LVADs).

Researchers have spent 20 years in trying to find the right gene to tweak to improve treatments for heart failure.