CISTEM · Project

Miniature Heart-on-a-Chip That Tests Drugs on Your Patient's Own Cells

healthPrototypeTRL 4Thin data (2/5)

Imagine you could grow a tiny version of a patient's heart on a chip the size of a USB stick, then test medicines on it before giving them to the actual person. That's what CISTEM built — microfluidic devices that take a patient's own skin cells, reprogram them into heart muscle cells, and watch how they respond to drugs. It's especially aimed at rare diseases like Duchenne Muscular Dystrophy, where every patient is different and standard treatments often don't work. Instead of guessing which drug might help, doctors could screen options on the patient's own mini-heart first.

By the numbers

consortium partners

countries involved (AR, ES, FR, PL, RS, US)

SME partners in consortium

38%

industry participation ratio

EUR 364,500

EU contribution

work packages

total deliverables

demo microfluidic chip prototypes delivered

The business problem

What needed solving

Rare diseases affect small patient populations where every person responds differently to treatment, making traditional drug development extremely expensive and often ineffective. Pharma companies and CROs lack affordable tools to test drugs on patient-specific heart tissue before committing to costly clinical trials. Current cell-based assays use generic cell lines that don't capture the patient-to-patient variability that defines rare diseases like Duchenne Muscular Dystrophy.

The solution

What was built

CISTEM built two microfluidic chip prototypes: one that differentiates a patient's own induced pluripotent stem cells into heart muscle cells (cardiomyocytes) on-chip, and another that models Duchenne Muscular Dystrophy cardiomyopathy. The first prototype was fabricated in PDMS material. Together, these form the basis of a personalized drug screening platform for rare cardiac diseases.

Audience

Who needs this

Pharma companies developing orphan drugs for rare cardiac diseasesContract research organizations (CROs) offering preclinical cardiac testingMicrofluidic device manufacturers expanding into organ-on-chip marketsAcademic medical centers running personalized medicine programsRare disease patient advocacy organizations funding translational research

Business applications

Who can put this to work

Pharmaceutical — Rare Disease Drug Development

enterprise

Target: Pharma companies developing orphan drugs for rare cardiac or muscular diseases

If you are a pharma company spending years developing orphan drugs with tiny patient populations — CISTEM built microfluidic heart-on-chip devices that let you screen drug candidates on patient-derived heart cells before clinical trials. With 8 partners across 6 countries and dedicated Duchenne Muscular Dystrophy cardiomyopathy models, this could cut early-stage failure rates by replacing generic cell lines with patient-matched tissue. The first prototype was fabricated in PDMS and designed for iPSC differentiation into cardiomyocytes.

Contract Research Organizations (CROs)

mid-size

Target: CROs offering preclinical cardiac safety and efficacy testing services

If you are a CRO looking to differentiate your preclinical testing portfolio — CISTEM developed microfluidic chips that model specific rare disease cardiomyopathies using induced pluripotent stem cells. This means you could offer personalized drug screening as a service, moving beyond standard cell-line assays. The consortium included 3 SMEs and 3 industrial partners with hands-on microfluidics and cell biology expertise, making technology transfer realistic.

Medical Device — Microfluidics & Diagnostics

SME

Target: Microfluidic device manufacturers expanding into organ-on-chip platforms

If you are a microfluidics company wanting to enter the organ-on-chip market — CISTEM designed and fabricated working chip prototypes for cardiac cell differentiation and disease modeling. The project delivered a PDMS-based microfluidic device for iPSC-to-cardiomyocyte differentiation and a separate chip modeling Duchenne Muscular Dystrophy cardiomyopathy. With 4 university partners providing deep stem cell expertise, licensing or co-development could accelerate your product roadmap.

Frequently asked

Quick answers

What would it cost to license or adopt this heart-on-chip technology?

CISTEM was funded with EUR 364,500 under MSCA-RISE, which is a staff exchange program — meaning most budget went to researcher mobility, not commercialization. Licensing terms would need to be negotiated directly with the consortium partners. The prototypes are early-stage PDMS devices, so expect additional R&D investment to reach a commercial product.

Can this scale to industrial drug screening volumes?

The current prototypes are lab-scale microfluidic chips designed for research proof-of-concept. Scaling to high-throughput drug screening would require redesign for manufacturing (moving beyond PDMS), automation of the iPSC differentiation process, and validation across multiple disease models. The consortium's 3 industrial partners could support this transition.

Who owns the intellectual property from this project?

IP ownership follows EU MSCA-RISE rules, typically shared among the consortium's 8 partners across 6 countries. The coordinator BIOSENSE INSTITUTE in Serbia would be the first point of contact. Any licensing would likely require agreement from multiple partners depending on which chip design you need.

Is this technology validated for regulatory submissions?

Based on available project data, the devices are research prototypes — not yet validated for regulatory use. The Duchenne Muscular Dystrophy chip and the iPSC differentiation chip would need extensive qualification before any regulatory body would accept data from them. However, the FDA and EMA are increasingly open to organ-on-chip data in drug applications.

How long before this could be used in actual drug development pipelines?

The project ran from 2018 to 2023 and produced working prototypes. Moving from prototype to a validated platform suitable for pharma drug screening pipelines would likely require further development, standardization, and regulatory qualification. A commercial partner could potentially accelerate this with focused investment.

Can the chip be adapted beyond heart tissue and Duchenne Muscular Dystrophy?

The iPSC differentiation approach is inherently flexible — the same stem cell technology can theoretically produce other cell types. However, the CISTEM deliverables specifically targeted cardiomyocytes and Duchenne Muscular Dystrophy cardiomyopathy modeling. Adapting to other organs or diseases would require new chip designs and differentiation protocols.

Consortium

Who built it

The CISTEM consortium brings together 8 partners from 6 countries spanning Europe (Spain, France, Poland, Serbia) and beyond (Argentina, USA), giving it unusual geographic reach for a relatively small project. With 3 industrial partners including 3 SMEs (38% industry ratio) and 4 universities, the mix leans academic but has real commercial grounding. The coordinator BIOSENSE INSTITUTE in Serbia is a research institute, not a company, which means commercialization will depend on the industrial partners stepping up or external licensees coming in. The MSCA-RISE funding mechanism is designed for staff exchanges rather than product development, so the EUR 364,500 budget primarily funded researcher mobility — not prototype manufacturing at scale. A business partner looking to commercialize this would need to engage multiple consortium members for the full technology stack: microfluidics fabrication, iPSC biology, and disease modeling expertise.

BIOSENSE INSTITUTE - RESEARCH AND DEVELOPMENT INSTITUTE FOR INFORMATION TECHNOLOGIES IN BIOSYSTEMSCoordinator · RS
CHERRY BIOTECHparticipant · FR
UNIVERSIDAD DE ZARAGOZAparticipant · ES
ELVESYSparticipant · FR
UNIVERSIDAD DE BUENOS AIRESpartner · AR
BEONCHIP SLparticipant · ES
RUTGERS, THE STATE UNIVERSITY OF NEW JERSEYpartner · US
UNIWERSYTET JAGIELLONSKIparticipant · PL

How to reach the team

BIOSENSE INSTITUTE, Serbia — contact via project website or CORDIS contact form for licensing inquiries

Order a report on this consortium See BIOSENSE INSTITUTE - RESEARCH AND DEVELOPMENT INSTITUTE FOR INFORMATION TECHNOLOGIES IN BIOSYSTEMS profile →

Next steps

Talk to the team behind this work.

Want to explore how heart-on-chip technology could fit your drug screening pipeline? SciTransfer can broker an introduction to the CISTEM team and help structure a licensing or co-development deal.

Order a report on this topic More in Health & Biomedical