Introduction

The problem

In the Western world heart diseases are the number 1 cause of death. New medicines are still being developed, and all these new medicines still need to be tested. Animal tests are currently still one of the most important parts in the process of the development of a new drug. They're one of the last stages and they're used to determine the toxicity and the efficiency. However, because of the high costs associated with animal testing, the growing social aversion against them, and the anatomical differences between test animals and humans, different companies and research groups have started to look for a method that can replace these tests.

The solution

With the organ-on-a-chip technique a cell culture is grown whilst receiving a constant flow of new medium, much like what happens in the human body. The constant flow of medium creates a shear stress similar to the in vivo situation of cardiomyocytes. Because of the possibility to use human cells, mimic human body processes, the relatively low costs compared to animal testing, and the current social insensitivity towards this technique, it is looking like a promising option to replace animal tests with. The organ-on-a-chip method is however a newly developed technique that still needs a lot of improving and testing before it can be used for such purposes.

The goal

In this project, two techniques are shown for the development and assessment of a heart-on-a-chip device which could be used for drug testing later on.