Melbourne: Australian researchers have created human heart valve tissues from stem cells that could help advance treatments for childhood heart disease, the Murdoch Children's Research Institute (MCRI) said Wednesday. The Melbourne-based institute revealed that the three-dimensional tissues mimic key molecular features of human heart valves, providing researchers with a new platform to study how valves form, grow, and become damaged.

According to Anadolu Agency, the research, led by MCRI, was published in the journal Cell Stem Cell. Heart valve disease affects approximately 28 million people worldwide and occurs when one or more of the heart's four valves fail to open or close properly. It can result from developmental problems, infections, or aging. Currently, there are no treatments that can repair damaged heart valves, leaving many patients reliant on surgery to replace them. For children, existing replacement valves do not grow with the body, necessitating multiple open-heart surgeries as they develop.

"By creating heart valve tissues that mimic the molecular features of a human version, we can now test and advance new treatments at scale in the lab," lead author Dr. Holly Voges of MCRI said in the institute's statement. The researchers also demonstrated that the lab-grown tissues could be used to model inflammatory valve disease, which can lead to rheumatic heart disease. Australia has some of the world's highest recorded rates of rheumatic heart disease, a largely preventable condition that disproportionately affects Indigenous Australians.

Enzo Porrello, director of stem cell medicine at MCRI, stated that engineered stem cells allowed researchers to recreate the complex structure of heart valves. "In the future, this technology could be used to more accurately model valve disease and support the development of stem cell-derived replacement valves that grow and adapt with a patient," he said.