A new technology is being tested that may one day allow patients who have suffered heart attack or heart disease to ‘patch’ their broken hearts with new, lab-grown tissue.

The team led by professor Gordana Vunjak-Novakovic, at Columbia University Medical Center in New York City are using a bioreactor to grow new tissues to spec. There are problems yet to be worked out, but animal trials are underway, with the hope of starting human trials perhaps in a decade.