Making and Mending

This striking picture shows the delicate blood vessels and lining of a mouse's heart as the animal grows in the womb. It's a complex process requiring cells to organise themselves into arteries, veins and finer tubes called capillaries that supply blood and energy to the heart itself, as well as the four muscular chambers forming the pump that pushes blood round the body. Researchers have discovered that some animals, including mice and zebrafish, have the potential to repair their own hearts if they get damaged or diseased, using similar processes that happen when the heart first grows. By understanding how this happens, and seeing if the same repair mechanisms can be triggered in humans, we might be able to repair our broken hearts one day.

Written by Kat Arney

Kat Arney

Writer

Dr Kat Arney is an award-winning science writer, broadcaster and public speaker, and is the founder and Creative Director of First Create The Media.

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• Image by Sarah Ivins
• University College London
• Copyright held by original author
• Runner Up in the British Heart Foundation's Reflections of Research Image Competition