Novel research into heart disease in cats

Hypertrophic cardiomyopathy, or cardiac disease, affects 15% of the UK cat population, yet there is little information about what causes it, and there are no effective treatments currently. It causes muscle growth which renders the function of the heart less efficient making the cat more susceptible to blood clots and heart failure.
For the first time, a collaboration of researchers from the Animal Health Trust, the Royal Veterinary College, and Imperial College London, together with PhD student Dr Luke Dutton, are to undertake research into the causes of heart disease in domestic cats. Their project will see a laboratory stem cell model of cat heart disease created, allowing researchers to study the heart muscles to get a better understanding of cardiac disease and test new drugs without having to experiment on animals.
Cat skin cells, both affected and not affected by genetic mutations causing hypertrophic cardiomyopathy, will be turned into induced pluripotent stem cells which can turn into any tissue in the body. This will overcome the problem of heart muscle cells not surviving very long in the lab. The researchers will then be able to create as many heart muscle cells as necessary with extended longevity, giving them an opportunity to study the disease and see how the heart muscle cells respond to various drug combinations.