U.K. charity gives $36 million boost to gene editing for inherited heart diseases

When a high school athlete dies from a heart attack or a young woman needs a heart transplant, it is often because they inherited a DNA mutation that causes heart muscle disease. Today, in the biggest research grant ever from the research charity, the British Heart Foundation announced an award of £30 million ($36 million) over 5 years to an international team to develop gene-editing treatments for these deadly diseases.

Called CureHeart, the project bested three others shortlisted by the Big Beat Challenge, a competition launched in 2019 to fund transformative heart disease research. Advances in gene editing, particularly the method called CRISPR, “really provide opportunities to combat … cardiovascular disease differently,” said British Heart Foundation Chief Executive Charmaine Griffiths at a press briefing.

The conditions targeted by the award are known as genetic cardiomyopathies. The disorders affect one in every 250 people, putting them—and their relatives who inherit the same mutation—at risk for heart attacks and heart failure. “Cardiomyopathies truly haunt families,” often for generations, says Hugh Watkins, a cardiologist at the University of Oxford and leader of...