WATCH: Human tissue registry at St. Paul’s aids medical research

Tyler Smith’s heart is now part of a human tissue registry at St. Paul’s Hospital.

It is almost twice the size a human heart should be after he was diagnosed with a hypertrophic cardiomyopathy in 2010.

Smith’s heart is one of nearly 3,000 housed in the biobank, tucked away in the cellars of the hospital. The program, run by the Center for Heart Lung Innovation, is fairly unique in the world.

And there are only a couple of other institutions that have a cardiac collection of this size.

Elaine Yong reports.