Our project partners from the Leiden University Medical Centre (LUMC) have published a paper on the “Perspectives for Future Use of Cardiac Microtissues from Human Pluripotent Stem Cells”.
Organ-on-chip technology based on microfluidic devices has recently been combined with stem cell-derived organoids and microtissues to create vascularized structures that can be subjected to fluidic flow and to which immune cells can be added to mimic inflammation of tissue postinjury. Similarly, the integration of nerve cells in these models can provide insight into how the cardiac nervous system affects heart pathology, e. g. after myocardial infarction. This article summarizes various 3D microphysiological systems that have been used to model human heart tissue, including cell sources, applications, and readouts and considers these models and approaches in the context of cardiovascular disease. The authors reflect on perspectives for their future implementation in understanding disease mechanisms and the drug discovery pipeline. Read more here.
This project has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under grant agreement No. 812954.