EMAPS-CARDIO

Development of a new platform for growth and maturation of cardiac microtissues for adult-like organotypic models.

The EMAPS-Cardio project proposes realistic heart models that can help to advance the understanding of several prevalent heart diseases, such as heart attacks and strokes, while striving to be sufficiently accurate to detect drug potency in both healthy and diseases tissues. To achieve this, biomimetic microenvironment, that provides all the needed stimuli, and biomechanical have been developed by combining electro-mechanoactive polymer-based scaffolds (EMAPS) with bioactive membranes.

Currently, cardiovascular diseases (CVDs) account for 45% of deaths in Europe and are estimated to cost the EU economy €210 billion a year. However, only four drugs targeting cardiovascular diseases have been approved for use in the last decade. At this sense the EMAPS-Cardio has the main goal to achieve clinically relevant cardiac models for early-stage cardiovascular drug screening through:

• Development of devices that could be used for growing any healthy or diseased tissues requiring electrical and/or mechanical stimulation to enable more relevant heart, lung, muscle, skin, etc, organotypic models.
• Facilitating faster drug development by delivering accurate healthy and disease cardiac models with adult-like tissue maturity.
• Eliminating the need for animal testing and reduce drug development costs by allowing early-stage drug efficacy screening with living human cells.

Eurecat participates in the project through its Digital Health Unit and the Omics Sciences Unit. EMAPS-Cardio is coordinated by the French National Centre for Scientific Research (CNRS), and counts with a consortium formed by 22 partners from 10 European countries.