Our Mission
Building the Cure Foundation was created to raise awareness about Congenital Heart Disease (CHD). Our foundation will donate all proceeds to research which will someday cure complex heart defects in children.One out of every 100 children born worldwide have some form of CHD. Most of those children will have a successful palliation and will live healthy and normal lives. However, 25% of those born with CHD are born with a Complex CHD. For the small percentage of children with diagnoses such as Hypoplastic Left Heart Syndrome (HLHS), Double Outlet Right Ventricle, Tricuspid Atresia, Tetralogy of Fallot, Coarctation of the Aorta, Transposition of the Great Arteries, Pulmonary Atresia, and Truncus Arteriosus, a surgical intervention is required very soon after birth.Infants born with Complex CHD's require at least one and sometimes several open heart surgeries and/or heart transplantation to survive. Despite advances in medicine and the life saving surgeries that now allow these children a chance at life, 50% of children born with Complex CHD won't live to see their fifth birthday.In the United States, CHD is 60 times more prevalent than childhood cancer. Twice as many children die from CHD each year than from all forms of childhood cancer combined, yet funding for pediatric cancer research is five times higher than funding for CHD. In fact, of every dollar the government spends on medical funding, only a fraction of a penny is directed to CHD research.Even with this small contribution, CHD deaths have declined over the last decade due to advances made through research. There is currently no cure for any of the 40 different types of CHD, but imagine the possibilities if more funding went to this research. Building the Cure Foundation wants to raise the bar and create a larger awareness around CHD, increase funding for this life saving research and emphasize the importance of finding a CURE!
The Research
There are several groups who are attempting to use stem cells to build completely new hearts! Researchers are on the edge of cracking the code to regenerating the human body. And we find ourselves in the unique position of being able to DIRECTLY fund their research through this foundation.Our introduction to the research of Dr. Doris Taylor was the inspiration behind the creation of this foundation. Her incredibly talented team have worked tirelessly for many years and are currently engaged in research that will change the face of this earth and will save millions of lives! Dr. Doris Taylor
Driven by her vision of what is possible for the future, Dr. Doris Taylor has discovered a way to build a human heart using a patient’s own stem cells. She has devised a complex process of decellularizing, or removing all the living cells, from the “matrix” or “scaffold” of the heart and then re-injecting a person's own stem cells back into the heart. The result is a personalized heart for the recipient! The decellularized heart, or Ghost Heart, is the result of many trials and is the answer to the question of, how do we grow a new heart with stem cells?
Therefore, for the purposes of this research, the team uses pig hearts to create living beating hearts that will some day be ready for transplant. The fact that these hearts are built using a patient's own stem cells is the key to the lasting effect of such technology. Heart transplants already exist, however, the quality of life after a heart transplant is highly compromised due the necessity for immuno-suppressant drugs to prevent organ rejection. When a heart is built with the patient's own cells the problem of rejection is eliminated.Thus, the transplant recipient can lead a healthy and normal life without the complication of a compromised immune system. Also, a current transplant may have a lifespan of around 10 years because of the constant attack of the immune system on the organ; the stem cell heart has the potential to last many decades just as the person's original heart would.The genius of this technology is that it can be performed on any part of the body that receives a blood supply. For example, this technique can be used to create new livers, lungs, kidneys, intestinal tracts, bones, muscles, literally almost anything in the body. The brilliant minds behind this research will change the landscape of the future and change the lives of millions. This will eventually eliminate the organ transplant list.Currently, thousands of people die every year waiting for an organ transplant, this technology has the potential to save those lives. This will change the way we all think of growing old, ultimately, solving the problem of decay, being able to build human organs, will someday be possible because of this incredible research. It is our intention, as the Building The Cure Foundation, to donate all proceeds to this research and further the development they have already begun.
The Inspiration
My daughter, Katerina, was born July 30, 2018 and we thought she was born a completely healthy baby. At two days old it was discovered that she had not just a minor heart problem, but was missing half her heart. Doctors explained that she never developed the left side of her heart in utero and that she would need to have surgery immediately. After spending a week in the NICU regaining her strength (she was near death when they discovered her condition) she had surgery at 8 days old. She would continue on to have two additional open heart surgeries in her first year of life and spend more than 6 months in the PICU. During this time of total and complete uncertainty, sadness and despair I happened upon the research of Dr. Doris Taylor, who was formerly running a team in the regenerative medicine department of the Texas Heart Institute. For the first time in months, I felt there would be hope for Katerina, a child born with HLHS, a type of CHD for which there is no cure. The brilliant Dr. Taylor, I discovered, was building human hearts using stem cells. Meaning that not only could a heart be custom built for my child, using her own stem cells, but this heart would not be rejected by her body. In traditional heart transplants a patient has to be on immune-suppressant drugs for the rest of their life to prevent the body from attacking the new heart. With a Bio-Identical heart that would no longer be the case. In fact, a person with a heart built using their own stem cells may have a complete new lease on life without the extreme side effects of anti-rejection medication. I had the great pleasure of visiting Dr. Taylor in early 2020 and was amazed by the potential of what is possible because of her revolutionary research. I was honoured to meet such a visionary person who has dedicated much of her life to finding a cure for people needing organ transplants. Dr. Taylor has left Texas to pursue making hearts a reality. She is now working with engineers, process development teams and regulatory consultants to move building hearts into a true manufacturing endeavour. Putting us all one step closer to a CURE! See the link below to hear Dr. Taylor on CNN Life Itself:
