A Multimaterial Microphysiological Platform Enabled by Rapid Casting of Elastic Microwires.

Area of Science:

• Biomedical Engineering
• Cardiovascular Research
• Drug Discovery

Background:

• Rising drug development costs and limitations in current cardiotoxicity screening methods necessitate advanced in vitro models.
• Existing 3D cardiac tissue culture platforms often involve complex fabrication, hindering scalability for high-throughput drug testing.

Purpose of the Study:

• To develop a scalable, cost-effective 96-well plate platform for in vitro 3D human cardiac tissue culture and functional cardiotoxicity screening.
• To integrate multimaterial processing for enhanced tissue culture and noninvasive functional readouts.

Main Methods:

• Innovative multimaterial processing to create a 96-well plate format.
• Integration of soft elastic microwires for tissue anchoring and contraction sensing.
• Inclusion of conductive carbon electrodes for electrical stimulation and pacing.
• Utilization of rigid polystyrene to prevent drug absorption, unlike polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS).

Main Results:

• The developed platform offers higher throughput compared to existing state-of-the-art devices.
• Significantly reduced manufacturing and tissue production costs were achieved.
• The platform facilitates robust 3D cardiac tissue culture and noninvasive functional readouts.

Conclusions:

• This novel 96-well plate platform provides a scalable and cost-effective solution for in vitro cardiotoxicity screening.
• The integrated multimaterial design enables efficient human cardiac tissue culture and functional assessment for drug development.
• The platform addresses the need for high-throughput, predictive cardiotoxicity assays in preclinical drug discovery.