Washington, May 20: Indian scientists in collaboration with Brown University have created a nanopatch for the heart that can regenerate natural tissue cells damaged due to heart attack.

After a heart attack, nerve cells in the heart''s wall and a special class of cells that spontaneously expand and contract - keeping the heart beating in perfect synchronicity - are lost forever. Surgeons can''t repair the affected area.

But engineers at the India Institute of Technology Kanpur and Brown University have found its cure using nanotechnology.

Tests showed their synthetic nanopatch, a scaffold-looking structure consisting of carbon nanofibers and a government-approved polymer, regenerated natural heart tissue cells -- called cardiomyocytes - as well as neurons.

In short, the tests showed that a dead region of the heart could be brought back to life.

"This whole idea is to put something where dead tissue is to help regenerate it, so that you eventually have a healthy heart," said David Stout, a graduate student in the School of Engineering at Brown and the study's lead author.

The study was published in Acta Biomaterialia. (ANI)