Clinical trials of adult stem cells on heart disease patients could start in Galway within two years, subject to regulatory approval, it was announced yesterday.
Researchers at the National University of Ireland Galway said they only now needed the approval of the Irish Medicines Board (IMB) and a local ethics committee to go ahead with the trials in conjunction with doctors at Galway's University College Hospital.
The research will be the first of its type in the State, they claimed.
Frank Barry, the scientific director of the Regenerative Medicine Institute at NUI Galway, said the unit was in the process of making a submission to the IMB to allow it manufacture stem cells for human use and also for its approval to proceed to clinical trials with the product.
He stressed that it was adult bone-marrow stem cells that would be used.
"We only work with what we call post-natal stem cells, that is non-embryonic stem cells," he said.
"What we would do is take a sample of bone marrow from a patient with heart disease. We would isolate the stem cells from the marrow and then when they are ready, we would deliver a dose of these stem cells directly to the diseased heart. And based on the research that has been done to date, we can have some optimism that there would be a repair response," he added.
Mr Barry explained that the hope would be that heart muscle, damaged by a heart attack, would repair itself when given a dose of stem cells and "there would be some restoration of function".
The announcement was made at the start of an inter-national conference at NUI Galway on the subject of regenerative medicine, which examines stem cell and gene therapy in a number of areas, including heart disease, arthritis and neurological conditions.
Dr Pat Nash, a consultant cardiologist at University College Hospital Galway, said that despite progress in modern medicine, an increasing number of patients are experiencing advanced heart failure.
"Stem-cell research may offer new therapies to improve heart function and improve the outcome for these patients. This clinical trial will make a significant contribution to research in this area," he said.