Researchers at the Technion – Israel Institute of Technology, the Rambam Healthcare Campus (Rambam Medical Center), and colleagues at the McEwen Stem Cell Institute at the University Health Network in Toronto, Canada have succeeded in producing 3D engineered cardiac tissues from embedded chamber-specific heart cells (atrial and ventricular cells) derived from human stem cells.
The tissues, which simulate heart tissues of the atrium (auricle, or the upper chamber of the heart through which blood enters the ventricles) or the ventricles, will serve in the near future for personalizing medications for cardiac patients and developing new drugs to treat them. In the more distant future, the technology is expected to be utilized in the production of implants for damaged areas in the auricles and ventricles.