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Inherited heart conditions affect about one in 250 people worldwide<\/a>. Over the years, researchers have made a number of scientific advancements, offering hope for identifying and eventually curing these conditions.<\/p>\n Among the scientific progress is the CureHeart Project<\/a>, consisting of a team of experts from the U.K., U.S., and Singapore to develop effective genetic therapies for cardiomyopathies, or diseases of the heart muscle that make it harder for the heart to pump blood to the rest of the body.<\/p>\n For this research, scientists sought to use precision genetic techniques, called base and prime editing, in the heart for the first time to design and test the first cure for inherited heart muscle diseases, with the aim of turning off faulty genes (so that they are no longer expressing the harmful mutations). While researchers have yet to reach human trials, the treatment is promising, having already seen success in animal trials.<\/p>\n \u201cFor decades, we\u2019ve hoped that we could cure heart conditions. Most cardiac conditions are not curable right now, but just manageable,\u201d Richard Wright, M.D., Cardiologist at Providence Saint John\u2019s Health Center in Santa Monica, CA, told Prevention. \u201cAt least for this unusual array of disease states where a specific gene is abnormal and we\u2019ve been able to identify it, there\u2019s the possible opportunity, in theory, that we could go right into the cell and fix the fundamental problem in these people and cure them.\u201d<\/p>\n All those with inherited heart muscle conditions, also known as genetic cardiomyopathies, have a 50\/50 risk of passing faulty genes on to each of their children, according to Mayo Clinic<\/a>. And, often, several members of the same family develop heart failure<\/a>, need a heart transplant, or die at a young age.<\/p>\n About half of the genes that we have are turned on to make proteins in the heart, and there are thousands of mistakes in the genetic code that lead to the heart being too weak or heart muscle being too thick, which can lead to a myriad of health issues. These mutations are one of the more common causes of heart failure, explained Dr. Wright. \u201cIf this treatment were successful, you could rather quickly reprogram the genes to make normal, instead of abnormal, proteins within the heart, leading to the heart reversing its dysfunction and going back to normal.\u201d<\/p>\n If you inherit a \u201cbad\u201d gene, it doesn\u2019t necessarily mean you\u2019ll end up with the disease. Some people carry these mutations, or \u201cbad genes,\u201d their whole lives and never manifest any disease. However, in some specific cases, we know for certain that a disease will eventually manifest itself later in life\u2014in which case, we may want to prevent it from ever happening. It\u2019s possible that this cure could be distributed to those with cardiomyopathies at any time in their lives, before or after the condition presents itself.<\/p>\n So how do you go into a cell and correct the genetic code without potentially causing more harm? Scientists used to use viruses to carry information into the cell, which obviously has its potential side effects, but now they have the ability to do it directly and cut out the carrier entirely, which may prove to be much safer, according to Dr. Wright.<\/p>\n What other research is in progress for cardiomyopathy?<\/p>\n There have been many advancements in healthcare research over the past few years, directly related to the goal of curing cardiomyopathies. Some of these include:<\/p>\n Findings published in the journal Nature Cardiovascular Research<\/a> in July 2025 revealed progress in detecting hypertrophic cardiomyopathy (HCM) by harnessing the power of deep learning models and raw electrocardiographic (ECG) voltage data.<\/p>\n