Patients with cardiomyopathy have abnormally short telomeres in the cells responsible for heart contraction, Stanford researchers find. This disease hallmark opens new pathways for drug discovery. People with a form of heart disease called cardiomyopathy have abnormally short telomeres in heart muscle cells responsible for contraction, according to a new study by researchers at the Stanford University School of Medicine. A telomere is a DNA sequence that serves as a protective cap on the ends of chromosomes. The finding dovetails with a previous study showing that people with Duchenne muscular dystrophy, a genetic muscle-wasting disease, also have short telomeres in their heart muscle cells,
Gene therapy with telomerase was developed by CNIO in 2012 and has proved effective in mice against infarction, as well as in mouse models of aplastic anaemia and idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis associated to short telomeres CENTRO NACIONAL DE INVESTIGACIONES ONCOLÓGICAS (CNIO) Negative results and findings in science are perhaps less newsworthy, but they are no less important. Particularly when, as in this case, they demonstrate that a possible new therapeutic pathway against idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis and other diseases associated to short telomeres is in fact safe. Researchers from the Spanish National Cancer Research Centre (CNIO) have shown in a new study that the gene therapy with tel
