Mini heart
Cardiomyopathies affect the efficiency of the heart to pump blood to the body and may eventually lead to heart failure. Engineered cardiac chambers are emerging models that aim to replicate the pump function of the heart in vitro. In AST, we developed a beating ‘mini-heart’ to recreate and understand the effects of pressure and volume overload in cardiac output.
Multi-Heart Plate
Although advanced in-vitro cardiac models like organoids, heart-on-chips, and engineered heart tissues offer significant benefits, they fall short in replicating the heart’s fluid-pumping function. Engineered cardiac chambers address this gap. In this project, we build on insights from the bioreactor mini-heart platform, advancing toward the next generation of cardiac chambers. To create a more adaptable and standardized model, we developed the Multi-heart plate—a modular, versatile system that uses 40% fewer cells per chamber and is compatible with a 12-well plate format. After successful characterization, this platform will be used in disease model applications.
Funding
ERC Advanced – Heart2Beat
Researchers
PhD Candidate
PhD Candidate
Postdoc
Full Professor
Mini heart
Engineered pumping cardiac chambers are a promising technology to study the effects of hemodynamic loads in cardiac performance, in healthy and diseased conditions.
Using a sacrificial moulding approach, we developed a miniature human cardiac chamber that recapitulates the pumping function of the heart.
In this project, we aim to perform a functional and biomechanical characterization of the pumping chambers under static and dynamic load conditioning. This will provide the basis for accurate disease models using clinically-relevant pressure-volume readouts.
Researchers
PhD Candidate
Marcelo C. Ribeiro
Guest Researcher
Full Professor