Heart-on-a-Chip Systems: Disease Modeling and Drug Screening Applications

Published

February 14, 2024

Author(s)

Derrick Butler, Darwin Reyes-Hernandez

Abstract

Cardiovascular disease (CVD) is the leading cause of death worldwide, casting a substantial economic footprint and burdening the global healthcare system. Historically, pre-clinical CVD modeling and therapeutic screening has been performed using animal models. Unfortunately, animal models oftentimes do not completely recapitulate human physiology, leading to a poor translation of therapeutics from pre-clinical trials to consumers. Even those that make it to market can be removed due to unforeseen side effects. As such, there exists a clinical, technological, and economical need for systems that faithfully capture human (patho)physiology for modeling CVD, assessing cardiotoxicity, and evaluating drug efficacy. Heart-on-a-chip (HoC) systems are a part of the broader organ-ona- chip paradigm that leverages microfluidics, tissue engineering, microfabrication, electronics, and gene editing to create human-relevant models for studying disease, drug-induced side effects, and therapeutic efficacy. These compact systems can be capable of real-time measurements and ondemand characterization of tissue behavior and could revolutionize the drug development process. In this review, we highlight the key components that comprise a HoC system followed by a review of contemporary reports of their use in disease modeling, drug toxicity and efficacy assessment, and as part of multi-organ-on-a-chip platforms. We also discuss future perspectives and challenges facing the field, including a discussion on the role of standardization is expected to play in accelerating the widespread adoption of these platforms.

Citation

Lab on A Chip

Volume

24

Pub Type

Journals

Download Paper

https://doi.org/10.1039/d3lc00829k

Local Download

Keywords

Microphysiological systems, Heart on a Chip, Organ on a Chip, cardiac cells, biosensors, cardiovascular disease, microfluidics

Citation

Butler, D. and Reyes-Hernandez, D. (2024), Heart-on-a-Chip Systems: Disease Modeling and Drug Screening Applications, Lab on A Chip, [online], https://doi.org/10.1039/d3lc00829k, https://tsapps.nist.gov/publication/get_pdf.cfm?pub_id=956614 (Accessed October 17, 2025)