When a person suffers a heart attack, the time it takes to get treatment is crucial. That's because once heart muscle tissue is damaged, it can't be healed.

A researcher from St. Boniface Hospital, however, has found a gene that could bring damaged heart tissue back to life.

"The cells that make up the heart muscle itself - once they're damaged or injured they're not replaced by new ones," said Dr. Lorrie Kirshenbaum, a researcher at St. Boniface Hospital.

Researchers had little success locating a key gene.

"This gene we've been chasing for about 12 years," said Kirshenbaum.

But now they've found it.

"For us, it was initially disbelief," he said.

Kirshenbaum is now working on a way to use gene therapy so that when a person suffers a heart attack, they won't suffer lasting damage to the heart.

"So our approach would be to give a drug or a treatment that would prevent the heart cells from dying. And that would allow the other cells of the heart a chance to recover and if we could regenerate more heart muscle in the process, that would be fantastic," he said.

Kirshenbaum's work could impact more than just cardiac care. There is also a chance it could revolutionize the way cancer is treated.

Cancers contains cells that won't stop growing – cells that also possess the gene Kirshenbaum identified.

"In the big picture, if we could use this as a tool to study cancer and prevent certain cancers, not all cancers, this would also be a huge help," he said.

Kirshenbaum said he and his team could be ready for human trials in as little as three years, but first there are several technical and financial hurdles they'll have to overcome.

"I'll be sitting down with Dr. Kirshenbaum and getting a better sense for what it means for the industry and what it means for heart research and then we'll basically go out on the road and help attract donors," said Chuck LaFleche, president of the St. Boniface Hospital Foundation.

They're confident financial donors will be interested and that the research will change the lives of heart patients.

- with a report from CTV's Jon Hendricks