The capsule is about the size of a grain of rice and can be inserted into the chest of a heart patient and placed on the affected area of the heart. It is expected that if a capsule containing 30,000 stem cells is used for humans, the damaged heart can be restored.
Stem cells are cells that later turn into cells in any part of the body. They are usually formed in the bone marrow. Stem cells can restore the affected area in a few days or weeks by transforming into heart cells.
If the blood supply to the heart is severely affected, a heart attack can occur, affecting some of the heart’s muscles permanently. This is why some patients cannot withstand a second or third heart attack and die. A large number of people all over the world, including Pakistan, die from it and in the UK alone, one lakh people die while suffering from it.
Earlier attempts were made to implant stem cells in the heart but to no avail as the body’s internal defense system rejects it as an external invader. But seaweed capsules can suppress the body’s resistance by keeping cells at heart.
Seagrass is a compound alginate that combines with water to form a soft gel that is used in many medicines or pharmaceuticals. Secondly, it does not provoke the body’s immune system to react and the medicine in it slowly penetrates the body.
Scientists at Rice University and Baylor College of Medicine have developed a one-and-a-half-millimeter capsule that enters the body and slowly removes stem cells.
Several mice were then made heart patients after a heart attack and stem cells were inserted into them from the capsule. Four weeks later, the seaweed capsule repaired the heart, which was confirmed by the severity of the bleeding. But when stem cells were transplanted without grass, only 16% of the mice showed improvement.
It should be noted that the physical functions of humans and mice are similar and that is why this research is important, the details of which have been presented in a recent publication in the journal Biomaterials Science.