The development of a novel multicellular 3D myocardial platform for pharmacological and regenerative studies (Mr Fotios Pitoulis)
One of the challenges in studying heart diseases is developing more accurate ways to replicate what happens inside the body. Because the cells of the heart work under constantly changing physical and chemical conditions, they have unique properties that, once in a laboratory setting, are quickly lost. This means that when researchers find a new treatment that works on heart cells in the lab, it may not work in a person. This fellowship aims to replicate the conditions that the heart experiences in the body, and study how heart tissue reacts to these conditions. They will take ultrathin slices from human and animal hearts and apply mechanical stimulation similar to that experienced by the heart when it is beating. After keeping the slices for several days, they will see how the slices respond to drugs known to cause certain effects. They will then also look at how mechanical forces affect stem cells isolated from human hearts, as stem cells are increasingly used to study heart regeneration. Ultimately, the knowledge gained will help the team use stem cells to develop new models of normal and diseased heart tissue that behave more similarly to how the heart works inside the body. Not only will this improve the reliability of results from early drug testing, but it will also help to reduce the number of animals used in research.
Project details
| Grant amount | £148,927 |
|---|---|
| Grant type | Fellowships |
| Application type | MBPhD Studentship |
| Start Date | 01 July 2018 |
| Duration | 3 years, 6 months |
| Reference | FS/18/37/33642 |
| Status | In Progress |
