Washington, Oct 6 : Gene therapy could act as a tool to improve an ailing heart''s ability to contract properly and prevent heart failure, according to scientists from the Universities of Michigan and Minnesota.

The study has paved the way for a day when "closed heart surgery" via gene therapy is as commonly prescribed as today''s cocktail of drugs.

"We hope that our study will lead some day to the development of new genetic-based therapies for heart failure patients. The advent of molecular motor-based gene transfer for the failing heart will hopefully improve cardiac function and quality of life for heart failure patients," said Dr. Todd J. Herron.

For the discovery, the researchers treated heart muscle cells from the failing hearts of rabbits and humans with a virus (adenovirus) modified to carry a gene which produces a protein that enables heart cells to contract normally (fast molecular motor) or a gene that becomes active in failing hearts, which is believed to be part of the body''s way of coping with its perilous situation
(slow molecular motor).

They found that heart cells treated with the gene to express the fast molecular motor contracted better, while those treated with the gene to express the slow molecular motor remained unaffected.

"Helping hearts heal themselves, rather than prescribing yet another drug to sustain a failing organ, would be a major advance for doctors and patients alike. Equally important, it shows that gene therapy remains one of the most promising approaches to treating the world''s most common and deadliest diseases," said Dr. Gerald Weissmann, Editor-in-Chief of the FASEB Journal.

The study has been published online in the FASEB Journal. (ANI)