New institute grows heart cells on a chip

This new virtual institute is a collaboration of nine partners, each with their own area of expertise, and TU Delft, one of hDMT founders, has been able to make a flexible chip on which beating heart cells can not only survive but grow to form tissue. This organ-on-a-chip technology is a major step forward, allowing scientists to get a better insight into how organs work, thus speeding up medical research. Chips are micro-devices fitted out with mechanical, electrical and optical sensors, and they also have tiny micro-channels that supply food and water to the cells. This nurturing environment enables organ tissue to grow under micro-physiological conditions, so the chips can in effect mimic the functions, dynamics and composition of human organs. One remarkable example of this organ-on-a-chip technology has being pioneered at TU Delft’s Cytostretch, where tiny beating heart-cells can survive and even form tissue on the microchips. Because the heart cells are moving, the chips themselves needed be both flexible and elastic, as in a real beating heart. “It was no small feat”, said Dr. Ronald Dekker of TU Delft and Philips. “We not only had the technological challenge of making flexible chips, but we also had to ensure that the chips could be mass-produced.” The Cytostretch technique enables researchers to monitor the effects of mechanical stress on the cells’ electrical activity, giving a better insight into the exact workings of living heart cells. Moreover, the scientists could, in principle, also measure the effects of new medicines on the cells, noting any side-effects before sending the drug for clinical trials; this would save the pharmaceutical companies a great deal of time and money.

The scientists are also planning to apply this organ-on-a-chip technology more widely, to cultivate for liver or kidney cells; and there are plans to grow cancer cells on a chip so that researchers can study the way that tumours divide and spread.