Category: innoVation

With the New Year we are focussing on the importance of human iPSC-derived cardiomyocyte beat rate pacing for the analysis of drug effects. Hinata et al., 2022 investigated the relationship between contraction parameters and beating rates of cardiac cell sheet tissues by directly measuring the contraction force and compared the effects of ion channel drugs…Continue readinginnoVation Series December 22 / January 23

The October issue of the innoVation series is a special workshop report of the FDA (Pang et al., 2019) on improving cardiotoxicity assessment with human-relevant platforms. In detail, the urgent need to integrate human-relevant platforms/approaches into drug development to reduce cardiovascular safety liabilities were discussed, including potential regulatory applications of human-derived cardiomyocytes and future directions…Continue readinginnoVation Series October / November 2022

The article from Chirikian et al., 2022 covering April and May of the innoVation Series addresses the effects of xeno-free cryopreservation on the contractile properties of human iPSC-derived cardiomyocytes. Read the article to find out about alterations in both the contractile and calcium handling properties of xeno-free cryopreserved hiPSC-CMs. Collectively, the authors observed increased force…Continue readinginnoVation Series April – May 2022

In the March issue of the innovation Series a charcterization study of cardiac cells and their gene expression profiles was performed. Six anatomical adult heart regions were analyzed to establish a cardiac cell atlas for better understanding of the adult human heart. In detail, Litviňuková et al., 2022 highlight the cellular heterogeneity of cardiomyocytes, pericytes…Continue readinginnoVation Series – March 2022

A newly published article assessing human induced pluripotent stem cell derived-cardiomyocyte (hiPSC-CM) contractility kinetics caught our interest this month. The data shows that flexible substrates are necessary for normal twitch-like contractility kinetics and interpretation of inotropic interventions. Huethorst et al. analyzed spatiotemporal contractility of hiPSC-CM monolayers seeded on conventional, rigid surfaces (glass or plastic) and…Continue readinginnoVation Series – February 2022

We start the new year with an article by Lebrec et al., 2021 covering CAR-T / TCR immunotherapy research findings with a focus on nonclinical safety evaluation. Engineered T cell therapies provide huge opportunities to address current unmet medical needs but present also unique challenges in terms of safety assessment during nonclinical and clinical development.…Continue readinginnoVation Series – Research Article of the Month – January

This article from Cui et al., 2019 underlines once again how important mature human iPSC-derived cardiomyocytes (hiPSC-CMs) are for investigating tox effects reliably for human cancer treatment. Knowing that children are more susceptible to reveal doxorubicin-induced cardiotoxicity, this article investigates underlying mechanisms by comparing hiPSC-CMs of 30 and 60 days in culture that were treated…Continue readinginnoVation Series – Research Article of the Month – December

This months research article caught our eye because it analyzes the cell persistance and electrical integration of intramyocardially transplanted murine iPSC-derived cardiomyocytes. Murine iPSC-derived cardiomyocytes were tested in vitro for best attachment rates at three different developmental stages. The best two were then selected for injection into infarcted hearts of adult mice. Cell persistance and…Continue readinginnoVation Series – Research Article of the Month – October

July’s innovation Series article by Luo and Li et al., 2020 focuses on the role of type 2 ryanodine receptor (RYR2), an essential calcium channel required for excitation-contraction coupling in cardiomyocytes during human embryonic cardiac development. Read the article to find out how human iPSC-cardiomyocyte RYR2 -/- lines were generated via CRISP/Cas9 and compared to…Continue readinginnoVation Series – Research Article of the Month – July 2021

Similar to April’s innovation series issue, we have chosen an article that deals with the question of whether a cardiotoxic effect is of direct or systemic origin. In this month’s issue we are not looking at CAR-T related cardiac toxicity, but SARS-CoV-2 related severe cardiovascular symptoms. Read the article by Marchiano et al., 2021 and…Continue readinginnoVation Series – Research Article of the Month – June 2021