City-based leading cardiac care centre, Frontier Lifeline hospital, is competing with some of the leading research institutes across the globe to develop biological pacemaker using stem cells. Research has been on at the hospital’s laboratory in Ticel Biotech Park, Chennai, for the past year.

“Studies are on to produce a biological pacemaker through stem cells as a better alternative to electronic pacemakers,” said Soma Guhathakurtha, director of the hospital and joint managing director of Frontier Tissue Line.

Leading research institutes in the world such as Technion-Israel Institute of Science, John Hopkins University and British Heart institute are also conducting studies to treat heart disorders using stem cells, including producing pacemakers from human embryonic cells.

Frontier Lifeline has successfully completed 42 cases of cardiac muscle revival using stem cells till now. The hospital is also opening its public stem cell bank this June.

The public bank enables anybody to buy stem cells if they get have match in the stored samples. Frontier Lifeline’s bank will have an initial capacity to store 3,500 processed stem cell samples. The stem cells will be mainly sourced from umbilical cord blood.

The hospital has tied up with two other healthcare institutions in the city, Vijaya Hospital and Integral Coach Factory hospital, that have gynaecology departments. Frontier Lifeline has been sourcing the cord blood samples for their research purposes from these hospitals, she said.

The hospital already has a stem cell ethical committee with members from different walks of life. There are judges, advocates, doctors from other hospitals, college professors and priests in the nine-member ethical committee.

“The facility, however, will not look at private banking except for individual cases in which storing cord blood cells for family members becomes necessary. Private banking is not a viable option as storing the cells for long years is quite expensive,” she said.