Heart disease in a dish: Human iPSC-derived multicellular cardiac organoids

Presented by Jarmon Lees, St Vincent's Institute of Medical Research Cardiovascular disease is the leading cause of death worldwide necessitating accurate human disease models to improve our cellular and molecular understanding of heart diseases and facilitate preclinical trials. Here we have developed an advanced 3D multicellular human heart tissue model for modelling cardiovascular diseases. Human induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs) were differentiated into cardiomyocytes, endothelial cells and sympathetic neurons for construction of vascularised and innervated cardiac organoids, which can be maintained for at least 4 weeks in culture.