Improving Accuracy in Cardiotoxicity Screening
One billion dollars and countless hours are invested into bringing a potential drug compound to market. A key bottleneck in this process is screening for adverse effects. In fact, the leading cause for drug dismissal is cardiotoxicity, which often goes unnoticed until advanced clinical trials. With cardiovascular disease being the most prevalent cause of death worldwide, the need for accurate prediction of cardiotoxic effects at early stage drug development is absolutely critical.
Currently, the most common method of detecting drug cardiotoxicity is screening for inhibition of hERG (human ether-a-go-go related gene), an ion channel that is necessary for electrical conductivity in a beating heart. This assay is performed by introducing hERG into an unnatural environment – non-cardiac, immortalized cell line – and thus boasts results that are only moderately correlated to actual cardiovascular liabilities in patients.
Human induced pluripotent stem cell (iPSC)-derived cardiomyocytes have offered major advantages in detecting drug cardiotoxicity. These cells not only retain cardiac features but are durable in cell culture environments for laboratory experiments. Currently, iPSC-derived cardiomyocytes can be purchased in a cell culture format; however, such unorganized arrays fall short in providing scientists with an accurate model of the full cardiac tissue.
Click on our Technology tab or watch our video to learn how TissueNetix is solving this problem. 