hTERT for Heart Disease

Tissue engineering hope has revolved around the possibility of creating new functional tissues.  Where the heart and circulatory system are concerned, the short lifespan of cells used has produced immense difficulty in producing new blood vessels.

That's why the recent use of hTERT (human telomerase reverse-transcriptase) on blood vessels has been such an exciting development.  The hTERT acts to reset the clock for cells, a clock termed a telomere.  The telomeres reduce in length each and every time a cell divides - until they reach a certain point at which the cell dies in a programmed way (apoptosis).

Telomere shorting is the very essence of aging, and acts to protect the body from every increasing cell mutations as imperfect copies of cells are made.

Whilst this technique is very important, there is an enhanced risk of cancer or other cell deformity when old cells have their lifetimes artifically extended.

It is perhaps worth noting that some cells do not age in this way - most importantly stem cells.  The use of stem cells may represent an alternative path to the use of hTERT.