• Question: What are your new ways and why are you looking for new ways?

    Asked by ibzswag to Catherine on 10 Mar 2014.
    • Photo: Catherine Mansfield

      Catherine Mansfield answered on 10 Mar 2014:

      Our understanding of heart disease has improved a lot in recent years, but it is still one of the biggest killers in the world. Because so many people die from heart diseases we need new or better ways of treating it.

      There are currently many treatments being developed and tested. One method that is being worked on in my lab is, if the disease is caused by a mutation in the DNA we can insert healthy DNA into a harmless virus and use the virus to infect the cells of the heart. The presence of the healthy DNA can cure the disease. This technology has only just started to be tested in humans.

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