Restricted Research - Award List, Note/Discussion Page
Fiscal Year: 2023
1827 The University of Texas at El Paso (143715)
Principal Investigator: Natividad-Diaz,Sylvia Lucia
Total Amount of Contract, Award, or Gift (Annual before 2011): $ 447,900
Exceeds $250,000 (Is it flagged?): Yes
Start and End Dates: 9/1/22 - 8/31/25
Restricted Research: YES
Academic Discipline: Metallurgical & Materials Eng
Department, Center, School, or Institute: Metallurgical & Materials Eng
Title of Contract, Award, or Gift: SC2: 3D in vitro Human Stem Cell-derived Cardiovascular Tissue Model and Microfluidic Platform for Targeted Preclinical Drug Screening
Name of Granting or Contracting Agency/Entity:
NIH - NATL INST OF GEN MEDICAL SCIENCES
CFDA Link: HHS
93.859
Program Title:
Biomedical Research and Research Training
CFDA Linked: Biomedical Research and Research Training
Note:
Cardiovascular Diseases are difficult to study and treat with pharmacological interventions due to the need for personalized medicine regimens, limited availability of human myocardium samples, and the difficulty associated with culturing primary cardiomyocytes in vitro for preclinical drug testing. In vivo animal studies are currently used to screen novel CVD therapeutics but are inefficient due to the associated high cost and advanced technical skill level. Incorporating human induced pluripotent stem cell (hiPSC) derived cardiovascular cells into relevant microfluidic devices provides a controlled, reproducible, and patient-specific (targeted) platform to study in vitro the complex process of CVD progression along with the cellular response to biochemical and biophysical changes in their microenvironments. Current in vitro cardiovascular tissue models incorporate cells from different sources and have not yet demonstrated a functional integration of cardiomyocytes with capillary-like networks composed of endothelial cells. Furthermore, microfluidic devices used with these models predominantly rely on external pumps to move fluid through the system. My long-term goals are to develop a patient-specific 3D cardiovascular tissue model and autonomous-flow microfluidic culture platform to assess the effects of pharmaceutical drug exposure on human myocardium in vitro and conduct fundamental studies of real-time cardiomyocyte-endothelial cell-extracellular matrix interaction for cardiomyopathy, atrial fibrillation, and atherosclerosis. My central hypothesis is that combining hiPSC derived 3D cardiovascular tissue with an autonomous-flow microfluidic device will create a patient-specific, physiologically relevant model that facilitates in vitro study of functional human myocardium. The primary impact of this work is the development of a targeted, single source cardiovascular tissue model that will contribute to more effective drug discovery by reflecting human response to the therapeutic and help reduce the use of costly animal models. This work also contributes to expanding the genetic diversity in preclinical drug testing studies so results are more representative of the general population.
Discussion: No discussion notes