I-Corps: Translation Potential of a Co-cultured Cardiomyocyte-on-a-Chip Heart Model Platform

The broader impact of this I-Corps project is the development of a heart muscle cell model platform that can mimic healthy and diseased human heart muscle. Currently, one-third of all new drugs fail due to toxic effects on the heart. This platform is designed to be used to predict how emerging pharmaceutical drugs may interact with the heart. It is known that drugs can change the rate and regularity of the heartbeat and current testing, which is mostly done in animal models, may not be enough to predict toxicity in humans. This technology may benefit pharmaceutical companies that develop and screen muscle-targeting drugs; medical researchers who conduct disease progression, toxicology screenings, and treatment impacts research in universities, research institutes, and pharmaceutical companies; and cardiologists looking for personalized drug screening for their patients. In addition, this model may lower the cost of prescription drugs, serve as a tool for more inclusive research, and impact patient outcomes. This I-Corps project utilizes experiential learning coupled with a first-hand investigation of the industry ecosystem to assess the translation potential of a cardiomyocyte-on-a-chip drug discovery platform. This benchtop model uses co-cultured human cells designed to simulate healthy and diseased human heart muscle and a piezoelectric material that allows for the measurement of the conversion of the cells’ contractile strength to a corresponding numeric output. This technology reduces manual data analysis time and may result in decreased human bias in the results. In addition, the use of multiple types of human cells makes this a more relevant platform compared to animal models. Testing has demonstrated that the solution may be used for drug toxicity screening, to fill data gaps in disease progression and treatment, and for collecting data representing patient diversity. The technology may provide a quantitative and physiologically relevant solution for non-invasively detecting contractility of cardiac muscle cells to predict how emerging pharmaceutical drugs may interact with the heart. This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.