Abstract

Metabolic Cues Enhance Maturation of Human iPSC-derived Cardiomyocytes in a Cardiac Microphysiological System

Nathaniel Huebsch, Assistant Professor of Biomedical Engineering, Washington University Saint Louis

Human Induced Pluripotent Stem Cells (iPSC) have great potential for enhancing drug development and basic understanding of disease processes. However, the immature nature of iPSC-derived tissue cells limits our ability to use them to predict the response of adult human tissues. We used Design of Experiments enhanced screening to identify a fatty-acid based medium that enhanced the electrophysiological (action potential) maturation of iPSC-cardiomyocytes in a Microphysiological System. In silico modeling combined with pharmacology suggested that changes in calcium handling underlie the action potential maturation. Ongoing studies are focused on instrumenting iPSC-cardiac micro-tissues to enable continuous non-optical electrophysiology analysis with micro-electrode arrays.