Researchers at Edinburgh University, a British Heart Foundation (BHF) Centre of Research Excellence, have developed a new technique that is able to track cells in the bloodstream, according to a study published in the journal Circulation.

The technique could be used in the future to measure the effectiveness of stem cell treatments to repair damaged heart tissue, say the researchers.

Heart failure, which affects more than 750,000 people in the UK, is often caused by damaged heart tissue, and researchers believe that this damage could be repaired by injecting stem cells into patients. However, until now, scientists have been unable to determine whether these stem cells end up in the heart.

Using a £2m state-of-the-art magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) scanner, researchers have been able to successfully track where the cells travel in the body by labeling them with tiny iron fillings, thus allowing the team to track the immune cells journey to damaged areas of the heart.

University of Edinburgh’s BHF Professor David Newby, explained: “We’ve safely and successfully tracked iron-labeled immune cells in healthy people. Having demonstrated this proof-of-principle, the next step will be to show this technique also works in heart patients.

This is an important finding because the ability to tell what proportion of cells is reaching damaged heart tissue would really help scientists trying to develop stem cell therapies to mend broken hearts.”

Dr Hélène Wilson, research advisor at the BHF, said: “The MRI scanner works much like a Sat Nav by mapping the magnetic cells as they move through the body.

Scientists have shown the MRI scanner can track labeled immune cells as they move in the bloodstream, but it is important to find out whether it can do the same with injected stem cells. If successful, this opens exciting avenues to further stem cell treatments for patients with heart disease.”

The study was conducted at The Wellcome Trust Clinical Research Facility and the Clinical Research Imaging Center at the University of Edinburgh and was funded by the British Heart Foundation, the Translational Medicine Research Collaboration and NHS Research Scotland.

Written by Grace Rattue