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Langis LeBel survived a blocked artery at the front of his heart, a heart attack known as a “widow maker.” He was lucky.

He knows he sustained major injury, which can lead to heart failure. The existing approach is to simply wait and see how his heart heals and how his body copes with a reduced ability to pump blood.

“It does change your life because there are so many things you can’t do anymore,” said LeBel.

Dr. Duncan Stewart, CEO and scientific director of the Ottawa Hospital Research Institute, wants this to change. His team has developed a therapy to use a patient’s own genetically enhanced stem cells to improve the heart’s healing in patients like LeBel.

“Using someone’s own stem cells means we avoid the problem of their body rejecting them,” said Dr. Stewart. “However, the patient’s own stem cells have reduced healing potential since they have been exposed to the same diseases and conditions that led to the heart attack in the first place. To rejuvenate these cells, we are inserting a small piece of genetic code that makes them more active and more effective in repairing the heart.”

Time is of the essence when inserting the gene-enhanced stem cells in patients. Since injured heart tissue scars and hardens within a month, 100 trial participants will be treated between five and 30 days after their heart attack. Trial volunteers are randomly assigned to receive a placebo, their own cells, or their own gene-enhanced cells.

By participating in the trial, LeBel is helping regenerative medicine try to reach a new era.

“I feel strongly that it’s something you need to do, otherwise we don’t advance,” said LeBel of the trial, which is scheduled to finish enrolling patients in 2015.

“If this trial is successful,” said Dr. Stewart, “it could open the door to therapies based on genetically enhanced stem cells that can restore function and reverse damage in other critical organs, not just the heart.”

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