Lab unveils heart-on-a-chip

Prescription drugs have enabled millions of Americans with chronic medical conditions to live longer and more fulfilling lives, but many promising new drugs never make it to the human trials stage due to the potential for cardiac toxicity. 

Through "heart-on-a-chip" technology-modeling a human heart on an engineered chip and measuring the effects of compound exposure on functions of heart tissue using microelectrodes-Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) researchers hope to decrease the time needed for new drug trials and ensure potentially lifesaving drugs are safe and effective while reducing the need for human and animal testing.

The research is part of the Lab's iCHIP (in-vitro Chip-Based Human Investigational Platform) project, which replicates human systems on engineered platforms to test the effects of toxic chemical and biological compounds.

The research, published online on April 18 in the journal Lab on a Chip, describes the successful recording of both electrical signals and cellular beating from normal human heart cells grown on a multi-electrode array developed at the Lab. It is the first design, according to the researchers, capable of simultaneously mapping both the electrophysiology and contraction frequency of the cells.

"This platform allows you to do high-throughput screening of pharmaceutical drugs and predict their effects on the heart," said iCHIP principal investigator Elizabeth Wheeler. There's still validation and data we need, but eventually it would allow us to reduce the need for animal testing.