LONDON, April 2 (Reuters) - A British research team has grown part of a human heart from stem cells for the first time, the Guardian newspaper reported on Monday.

Animal trials are planned for later this year and, if successful, replacement tissue could be used in transplants for people suffering from heart disease within three years, it said.

"...The common pathway of death and suffering is heart failure," said leading heart surgeon professor Magdi Yacoub who is heading the research team.

"Reversing heart failure could have a major impact," he was quoted as saying in the Guardian.

His team at the heart science centre at Harefield hospital has grown tissue that works in the same way as the valves in human hearts, according to the newspaper.

The group -- made up of physicists, biologists, engineers, pharmacologists, cellular scientists and clinicians -- has so far spent 10 years trying to characterise how every part of the heart works, it said.

Their progress is due to be published in a special edition of the Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society journal.

Yacoub was quoted as saying the latest work had brought forward the goal of growing a whole, beating human heart.

"It is an ambitious project but not impossible. If you want me to guess I'd say 10 years. But experience has shown that the progress that is happening nowadays makes it possible to achieve milestones in a shorter time. I wouldn't be surprised if it was some day sooner than we think."