Advancing contractile tissue engineering: Insights from Ethica M, an automated and high-throughput solution for 3D contractile tissues

Cardiovascular diseases (CVDs) account for around 32% of global deaths1. • Challenges in drug development for CVDs include limited access to human cardiac tissue, non-regenerative nature of cardiac cells, and species differences2. • Advances in stem cell biology and Organ-on-Chip technologies have led to the development of 3D culture systems, such as engineered heart tissues (EHT). • 3D culture systems better mimic the architecture of heart tissues and replicate complex extracellular matrix and cellular interactions3. • Bene ts of 3D cultures include improved accuracy and ef ciency in drug testing and disease modeling in cardiovascular research4. • Current 3D culture systems use a dual-pillar structure to support contractile tissues, but face challenges like high cell requirements, low throughput in functional characterization, and drug adsorption by materials like Polydimethylsiloxane(PDMS)5. • Ethica M is introduced to overcome these challenges, offering high-throughput scalability, automation, and non-reactive, biocompatible materials in a 96-well plate format. • Ethica M uses human induced cardiac pluripotent stem cells to generate and measure contractile forces from EHT, providing maximum data points over a given assay duration.