Prof Noel Caplice, director of the Centre for Research in Vascular Biology at University College Cork, displays his stent mesh. Photograph: Michael MacSweeney/Provision

As Prof Noel Caplice describes it, a revolutionary new system that avoids putting patients through heart bypass operations was literally a back-of- the-garage effort.

A cardiologist in Cork, he came up with the treatment when working as a cardiologist at the Mayo Clinic seven years ago. During this time, Caplice and an engineer friend worked on prototype meshes and attaching these to stents.

The treatment introduces cells that encourage the body to make new blood vessels that grow past the blockage, actually reversing the disease in as little as three or four weeks.

The treatment may also offer hope for patients suffering from other cardiovascular disorders such as peripheral artery disease, a common risk in diabetes. And, because it uses the patients own cells, there is no question of rejection, says Caplice, director of University College Corks Centre for Research in Vascular Biology.

This would represent a major step forward in the treatment of coronary artery disease, he adds. Instead of open-heart surgery and stitching in arteries to bypass a blockage, it causes the body to grow its own bypass. He is leading the research, which also involves the Mayo Clinic in the US, and the team has published a paper describing the work in the current issue of the journal Biomaterials.

He came up with the idea when working as a cardiologist at the Mayo Clinic seven years ago, he says.

One area we were interested in was patients who were inoperable, patients who were too ill to face open-heart surgery and who had no options. That represents about 20 to 25 per cent of all patients with coronary artery disease.

He was a scientist physician while at the Mayo as he is now, doing research but also working with patients, and he ran his own laboratory. He originally thought of introducing stem cells to encourage blood vessel growth, but when injected they go everywhere, you cant direct them in the body.

Caplice is also a consultant cardiologist at Cork University Hospital.

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