Researchers advance organ-on-chip technology to advance drug development

Designing self-rolling 3D sensors that wrap around heart cell spheroids

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Aug 23, 2019, 14:30 ET

PITTSBURGH, Aug. 23, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- Researchers from Carnegie Mellon University (CMU) and Nanyang Technological University in Singapore have developed an organ-on-an-electronic-chip platform, which uses bioelectrical sensors to measure the electrophysiology of the heart cells in three dimensions. These 3D, self-rolling biosensor arrays coil up over heart cell spheroid tissues to form an "organ-on-e-chip," thus enabling the researchers to study how cells communicate with each other in multicellular systems such as the heart.

Carnegie Mellon BME/MSE’s Tzahi Cohen-Karni explains how his research group studies communication in cells by tracking electrical signals with 3D self-rolling biosensors instead of flat 2D ones.

Researchers from Carnegie Mellon University's College of Engineering and Nanyang Technological University in Singapore have published a paper in Science Advances that aims to advance drug development by advancing organ-on-a-chip technology. By designing self-rolling sensors that wrap around heart cell spheroids, the team can measure the electrophysiology of heart cells in three dimensions.

The organ-on-e-chip approach will help develop and assess the efficacy of drugs for disease treatment—perhaps even enabling researchers to screen for drugs and toxins directly on a human-like tissue, rather than testing on animal tissue. The platform will also be used to shed light on the connection between the heart's electrical signals and disease, such as arrhythmias. The research, published in Science Advances, allows the researchers to investigate processes in cultured cells that currently are not accessible, such as tissue development and cell maturation.

"For decades, electrophysiology was done using cells and cultures on two-dimensional surfaces, such as culture dishes," says Associate Professor of Biomedical Engineering (BME) and Materials Science & Engineering (MSE) Tzahi Cohen-Karni. "We are trying to circumvent the challenge of reading the heart's electrical patterns in 3D by developing a way to shrink-wrap sensors around heart cells and extracting electrophysiological information from this tissue."

The "organ-on-e-chip" platform starts out as a small, flat rectangle, not unlike a microscale slap bracelet. A slap bracelet starts out as a rigid, ruler-like structure, but when you release the tension it quickly coils up to band around the wrist.

The organ-on-e-chip starts out similarly. The researchers then pin an array of sensors made of either metallic electrodes or graphene sensors to the chip's surface, then etch off the layer of germanium, which is known as the "sacrificial layer." Once this sacrificial layer is removed, the biosensor array is released from its hold and pops away from the surface in a barrel shaped structure.

The researchers tested the platform on cardiac spheroids, or elongated organoids made of heart cells. These 3D heart spheroids are about the width of 2-3 human hairs. Coiling the platform over the spheroid allows the researchers to collect electrical signal readings with high precision and realize the way cells "talk" to each other in 3D.

"Essentially, we have created 3D self-rolling biosensor arrays for exploring the electrophysiology of induced pluripotent stem cell derived cardiomyocytes," says lead author of the study and BME Ph.D. student Anna Kalmykov. "This platform could be used to do research into cardiac tissue regeneration and maturation that potentially can be used to treat damaged tissue after a heart attack, for example, or developing new drugs to treat disease."

Through collaboration with the labs of BME/MSE Professor Adam Feinberg and former CMU faculty Jimmy Hsia, now Dean of the Graduate College of Nanyang Technology University in Singapore, the researchers were able to design a proof of concept and test them on 3D micro-mold formed cardiomyocyte spheroids.

"The whole idea is to take methods that are traditionally done in planar geometry and do them in three dimensions," says Cohen-Karni. "Our organs are 3D in nature. For many years, electrophysiology was done using just cells cultured on a 2D tissue culture dish. But now, these amazing electrophysiology techniques can be applied to 3D structures."

This work was made possible by support from the National Science Foundation CAREER Award and the Office of Naval Research Young Investigator Program. Other authors on this paper include CMU BME/MSE Professor Adam Feinberg; CMU BME/MSE researchers Jacqueline Bliley, Daniel Shiwarski, Joshua Tashman, Sahil Rastogi, Shivani Shukla, and Elnatan Mataev; Nanyang Technology University's Jimmy Hsia and Changjin Huang; and University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign's Arif Abdullah.

About the College of Engineering: The College of Engineering at Carnegie Mellon University is a top-ranked engineering college that is known for our intentional focus on cross-disciplinary collaboration in research. The College is well-known for working on problems of both scientific and practical importance. Our "maker" culture is ingrained in all that we do, leading to novel approaches and transformative results. Our acclaimed faculty have a focus on innovation management and engineering to yield transformative results that will drive the intellectual and economic vitality of our community, nation and world.

About Carnegie Mellon University: Carnegie Mellon (www.cmu.edu) is a private, internationally ranked university with programs in areas ranging from science, technology and business to public policy, the humanities and the arts. More than 13,000 students in the university's seven schools and colleges benefit from a small faculty-to-student ratio and an education characterized by its focus on creating and implementing solutions for real world problems, interdisciplinary collaboration and innovation.