IIT-Guwahati researchers produce cardiac proteins that can fix damaged hearts

With the use of six specialised recombinant proteins, which have been developed as a result of this research's success, it is now possible to create heart cells from any somatic cell found in an adult human body, including healthy skin cells. These heart cells can replicate the original heart cells and aid in the repair of damaged heart conditions.

Describing the research work's specifics Dr Rajkumar P Thummer said "Recombinant protein-based cellular reprogramming is a promising alternative and the safest approach among other available non-integration approaches. As these proteins do not modify or alter the genome of the cells, the cells generated using these reprogramming approaches have a high cell therapeutic value. Several challenges associated with the heterologous production of these recombinant proteins have been addressed in our six research publications in different journals."

To validate the recombinant fusion proteins' biological activity, the researchers worked with Dr Vishwas Kaveeshwar from the Central Research Laboratory at the SDM College of Medical Sciences and Hospital in Dharwad, Karnataka.

Krishna Kumar Haridhasapavalan research scholar at IIT-G and first author of the papers published by the team commented on this event "The recombinant proteins can be delivered to target sites without the need of any harmful reagents. In addition to cardiac repair, these proteins can be studied for their role in various cancers as suppressors or promoters of tumour growth."

It has to be noted that Krishna Kumar Haridhasapavalan is also a recipient of the AWSAR (Augmenting Writing Skills for articulating research) Award 2021, an honour given by the Department of Science and Technology, Government of India.

The researchers have recently shared their results on the development of cell - and nucleus -penetrating versions of six cardiac reprogramming transcription factors in numerous international peer-reviewed journals including, Molecular Biotechnology, Applied Microbiology and Biotechnology, Bioprocess and Biosystems Engineering, Current Research in Biotechnology, Healthcare Research and Related Technologies Proceedings from NERC 2022, scientific reports, and Advances in Experimental Medicine and Biology. IIT-Guwahati researchers produce cardiac proteins to fix damaged heart, according to a Press release. (ANI)