Validation of targets and drug candidates in an engineered three-dimensional cardiac tissue model

High-throughput target discovery confronts the biopharmaceutical industry with a plethora of target candidates. The validation of these candidates in disease-specific animal models often lacks the required throughput. Here, we discuss perspectives and limitations of a novel engineered three-dimensional cardiac tissue, which enables the influence of gene and drug intervention to be monitored on a cellular and molecular level under physiological conditions in sufficient throughput. The model is an extremely helpful filter to prioritize multiple development candidates before moving a project into large animal models with higher predictivity.