The UK British Heart Foundation (BHF) charity has published a round-up of its current funded research to treat heart disease, including examples of the use of CRISPR and animal models.
Using the Nobel Prize-winning genetic scissors (CRISPR-Cas9), UK scientists are currently working on these projects:
At Imperial College London, researchers are using CRISPR in human blood vessel cells, and mice and rats, to study pulmonary arterial hypertension – a condition where the pressure in the blood vessels supplying the lungs rises, which can lead to heart failure.
With a zebrafish model, scientists at the University of Sheffield are using CRISPR to find out why mutations in genes can cause babies to be born with heart defects.
Scientists at the University of Oxford are using CRISPR to find out how to repair heart damage after injury in zebrafish and new-born mice.
Meanwhile, a team at University of Birmingham is using CRISPR to study thrombocytopenia – a condition where someone has low levels of platelets in their blood – in mice.