The device has been used on six patients having elective surgery at St Vincent's Hospital to unblock heart arteries.
Researchers are now ready to start testing it on heart attack victims.
Rob Whitbourn said cooling the body reduced tissue damage by lowering the need for oxygen and preventing inflammatory processes. Animal experiments suggested the device could halve heart damage in heart attack patients, or brain damage in stroke patients, which could mean survival instead of death, he said. It would be at least a year before the device, if successful, graduated from testing to general use. The SetPoint Catheter consisted of a machine attached to a cool tube containing salt water that was inserted into a vein leading to the heart, he said. Blood coming into contact with the tube cooled down.