Myocardial tissue engineering: in vitro models

Modeling integrated human physiology in vitro is a formidable task not yet achieved with any of the existing cell/tissue systems. However, tissue engineering is becoming increasingly successful at authentic representation of the actual environmental milieu of tissue development, regeneration and disease progression, and in providing real-time insights into morphogenic events. Functional human tissue units engineered to combine biological fidelity with the high-throughput screening and real-time measurement of physiological responses are poised to transform drug screening and predictive modeling of disease. In this review, we focus on the in vitro engineering of functional human myocardium that mimics heart tissue for analysis of myocardial function, in the context of physiological studies, drug screening for therapeutics, and safety pharmacology.