New Publication: Hesperos and UCF Showcase First-of-its-Kind Human-on-a-Chip® Comorbidity Model to Accelerate Drug Discovery for Aging Populations
Published in: Advanced Biology
New research published in Advanced Biology demonstrates a novel multi-organ Human-on-a-Chip® platform capable of modeling sarcopenia and hypertrophic cardiomyopathy simultaneously to evaluate complex multi-disease drug interactions.
Introduction & Impact
Aging is frequently accompanied by multiple comorbidities that contribute to physiological decline. Currently, standard preclinical testing systems rely on single-disease cell assays or animal models that fail to capture complex multi-organ interactions. The Hesperos-UCF multi-organ system helps bridge this translational gap by enabling multiple disorders to be evaluated in a single platform.
Two such distinct but concurrent conditions are sarcopenia and HCM, often present in the elderly. This study developed a multi-organ microphysiological system that incorporates primary human hepatocytes, human induced pluripotent stem cell-
-(hiPSC)-derived skeletal muscle, and cardiac tissue to model sarcopenia and HCM and how these diseased tissue constructs interact with each other and the liver replicating in vivo conditions.
Notably, this new multi-organ system incorporates real-time functional biomechanics and electrophysiology rather than relying on static cell assays. The system utilizes microcantilevers to track physical muscle contraction forces and microelectrode arrays to measure cardiac electrical signals (QT intervals and conduction velocity) over a 14-day period. The study findings show that sarcopenia severity worsened when coupled with HCM, mimicking true clinical progression.
Key Results
- Researchers developed a multi-organ MPS that incorporates primary human hepatocytes, human iPSC-derived skeletal muscle, and cardiac tissue to model comorbidities
"With aging populations facing multiple chronic conditions, testing drugs on isolated organs in animal models is no longer sufficient, This multi-organ comorbidity platform allows biopharma researcher to simultaneously evaluate both efficacy and on and off-target safety risks across multiple diseased organs, significantly lowering preclinical costs and improving clinical trial success rates"
James J. Hickman, PhD
Chief Scientist
Hesperos, Inc.
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