Image source: Uppsala University; photo: Mikael Wallerstedt“We’ve developed a completely new type of biological drug that can be described as an anti-inflammatory treatment. It can be administered during balloon angioplasty to dampen inflammation and the scarring process that can otherwise lead to heart failure. We believe the method has great potential to reduce the risk of heart failure after a heart attack and thus also reduce the risk of cardiac death,” says Karl-Henrik Grinnemo, Professor and Consultant in Cardio-Thoracic Surgery at Uppsala University and Uppsala University Hospital, and the study’s first author. In previous studies on severe inflammatory conditions in the lungs, researchers used stromal cells with associated exosomes to achieve a similar effect. The method developed by the Uppsala researchers uses only the exosomes, which offers many advantages.