Crab shells have helped create a new substance to help repair damaged hearts, it was revealed last night.
The chemical, extracted from crabs, has contributed to a "patch" that will enable scars on heart tissue to be bypassed, researchers said.
The patch can be attached to the heart without stitches and will enable electrical pulses to be transmitted across scarred tissue, according to its developers.
So far the substance, announced in Science Advances, has been tested on rats. The next step is to test it on human cardiac tissue.
It has been developed at Imperial College, London, UK, and at the University of New South Wales, Australia, with backing from the British Heart Foundation.
It consists of a film of chitosan, a food additive extracted from crab shells, polyaniline and phytic acid.
Researcher Professor Molly Stevens, from Imperial College, said: “For people who have suffered a heart attack and have heart failure, arrhythmias are a common and very serious problem, which this patch has the potential to help with.
“No stitches are required to attach it, so it is minimally invasive and potentially less damaging to the heart.”
Fellow researcher Professor Sian Harding said: "When stem cells are first introduced into the heart they don’t immediately beat at the same time as the rest of the heart muscle.
"This heart patch could help us to address this issue and ultimately bring us one step closer to being able to mend broken hearts."
Mawade et al. Science Advances 30 November 2016
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