Dr. Charles Bridges is working to develop a new treatment for heart failure.

Bridges, associate professor of surgery at the University of Pennsylvania Medical Center and chief of cardiothoracic surgery at Pennsylvania Hospital, was awarded a $3 million grant from the National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute for his work in “molecular cardiac surgery.”

The four-year grant will allow Bridges to expand on his research in large animal “molecular cardiac surgery,” a term that he coined.

The methodology could potentially be used to provide alternatives to heart transplantation and the usage of mechanical devices in people with severe heart failure.

Bridges said while an estimated 60,000 people develop heart failure every year, only 2,000 of them will actually receive transplants due to the lack of organs.

Of that number, African Americans would be less likely to undergo heart transplant surgery.

According to Bridges, some heart transplant patients can suffer from infection and rejection of the heart.

Meanwhile, mechanical devices are very expensive — costing over $1 million for an artificial heart — and are associated with a high risk of failure, infection and stroke in patients.

“We’ve taken a third and novel potential solution to the problem and that is to change the gene expression in the heart that you already have,” said the Philadelphia native. “We know that from studies in rodents that altering gene expression we can have a dramatic impact on the function of the heart and we can cure certain types of heart failure.

“So there’s every reason to believe that if we can get genes delivered to the majority of heart muscle cells in human patients that we could also cure certain types of heart failure to a much greater degree then is currently possible, using any available medical therapy and it has tremendous advantages over heart transplantation or mechanical devices,” he added.

Bridges said this potential therapy could possibly go beyond treating heart failure to be applied to diseases such as hemophilia, diabetes, muscular dystrophy and cystic fibrosis.

He anticipates that it will take about five years before the potential therapy is ready for the clinical trial stage where it can be tested in humans.

Bridges collaborates with Dr. Hansell Stedman, associate professor of surgery at the University of Pennsylvania.

The team has four pending U.S. and international patents. What makes the research team so unique is they use a patent-pending molecular cardiac surgical technique which enables them get genes expressed in almost every heart cell in large animals such as sheep and dogs.

“Prior to the work that we have done, no one else has really been able to get more than a small percentage of the cells in the heart of express a gene of interest,” Bridges pointed out.

A carrier called a vector is used to deliver the specially designed beneficial genes known as transgenes.

The most common vector is a virus that has been genetically altered. Researchers have taken advantage of this capability by removing disease-causing genes and inserting therapeutic genes. The vector then discharges the therapeutic genes into the target cell.

The NHLBI grant will enable Bridges to begin testing his findings using therapeutic genes in sheep with heart failure.

Bridges graduated from Harvard College at age 19 and received his M.D. degree from Harvard University and a doctorate in chemical engineering from M.I.T.

He completed his residency in general surgery and his fellowship in cardiothoracic surgery at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania. He is board-certified in thoracic surgery and in general surgery.

Bridges maintains an active clinical cardiac surgery practice with special interest in transfusion-free cardiac surgery, minimally invasive mitral and aortic valve surgery, arrhythmia surgery and complex aortic surgery.

As the founding president of the Association of Black Cardiovascular and Thoracic Surgeons, Bridges is recognized as an authority on the topic of cardiac surgery in African Americans and racial disparities in cardiac surgical care.

He serves as a chairman of the Society of Thoracic Surgeons Workforce on Evidence-Based Surgery and as consultant to the Circulatory System Devices Panel of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration.

Bridges is also a fellow in the American College of Surgeons, the American Heart Association and the American College of Cardiology.

Bridges has been married for over 25 years to his wife, Renee, and has three daughters.