Imagine growing a tiny, working version of a human heart in a lab that can actually pump fluid. This allows scientists to test new medicines on real human-like tissue instead of relying on animals or flat petri dishes. They are also making a tiny swimming robot made of heart cells to detect poisons in the water.
Pharmaceutical companies face high drug failure rates because current heart models cannot pump blood or mimic human clinical parameters. This leads to increased expenditure and reliance on animal models that do not accurately reflect human physiology.
A vascularized, pumping human mini-heart and a self-propelling swimming bio-robot made from human cardiac cells.
If you are a drug discovery firm dealing with high failure rates in human clinical trials — this project developed a vascularized mini-heart that allows for in vitro measurement of pumping function. This helps predict how a drug affects the heart's pressure and flow before testing on people.
If you are a toxicity testing lab dealing with the lack of specific hazard classes for cardiotoxicity in pesticides — this project developed a swimming bio-robot. This tool can be used to assess the presence of cardiotoxicants in environmental settings.
If you are a bioprinting provider dealing with the inability to create functional, pumping organs — this project developed sacrificial molding and high-resolution 3D printing techniques. This enables the production of 3D tissue constructs with multiple cardiac cell types.
Based on available project data, there is no specific unit price mentioned; however, the project received an EU contribution of EUR 4,475,946 for development.
Based on available project data, the project focuses on developing the technology using 3D bioprinting and molding, but industrial scaling capacity is not yet specified.
Based on available project data, specific licensing terms are not provided, though the consortium includes 3 SMEs and 2 universities.
The project period runs from 2022-11-01 to 2027-10-31, suggesting the technology is still in the development phase.
The mini-heart is designed to measure pressure and volume output, which are the same outputs assessed in the clinic.
The consortium is heavily weighted toward commercial application, with a 60% industry ratio consisting of 3 SMEs. This suggests a strong drive toward commercialization, supported by the academic expertise of 2 universities across 4 countries (NL, DE, ES, PT).
Contact Universiteit Twente (NL)
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