CardioXpress^©: HTS for early predictive cardiac liability screening

The Project

Human pluripotent stem cells are a renewable and reproducible source of cardiomyocytes (hPSC-CM) that share many features of human adult ventricular cardiomyocytes. In this project we aim to build disposable multi-well MEA (Micro Electrode Array) sensing plates with miniaturized wells for automated High Throughput Screening (HTS) assays based on hPSC-CM.

The main objective is to provide a fast, completely expandable turnkey system to get a mechanistic view of drug activity.

Records and analysis of hPSC-CM responses at different concentrations of potential drugs with multi-well micro-electrode arrays will be saved and analyzed online and offline with advanced techniques to predict the effects on cardiac electrical activity of one or similar groups of compounds.

The Consortium

CardioXpress© is a joint project between NOTOCORD® (France), Pluriomics (Netherlands) and Multi Channel Systems (Germany):
- Pluriomics applies groundbreaking pluripotent stem cell technology for the discovery of novel cardiac drug and targets, and assays to predict cardiac safety early in development of new drugs.
- MCS  develops high-performance measuring instruments and equipment in the field of electrophysiology. MCS is a  leader in the field of non-clinical microelectrode array electrophysiology.
- NOTOCORD® is a leading software publisher, specializing in data acquisition and analysis for experimental drug research. Flexible and modular, the  NOTOCORD-hem™ software platform provides fast and high-quality analysis.

 

Roles in CardioXpress©

  Pluriomics will develop its StemCARDcells® technology to meet the required biological criteria. Their objective is to overcome the variability problems and to deliver high quality hPSC-CM, differentiated and maintained in completely defined, serum-free culture media.

• Innovative hPSC cardiomyocytes
• Excellent pharmacology
• Competitive pricing
• Easy handling

  Multi Channel Systems will develop a novel automated platform technology for electrophysiological screening of hPSC-CM in 24 or 96 multi-well plates. The system will offer pure digital gain, filter and bandwidth control. It will be able to accept liquid handling robotics to enable automated unsupervised experimental routines.

• High throughput systems
• Multi well automation systems
• Pioneer in high speed multi electrodes arrays
• 15-years’ experience

  NOTOCORD® will develop the analysis algorithms. Our objective is to provide easy-to-use powerful software to measure such sophisticated technology, with a full integrated solution from experiment management to data collection and meta-analysis.

• Interactive & flexible software
• Advanced signal processing
• From signals to ionic channels
• > 20-years’ experience

 

Innovative framework

CardioXpress© is a Eurostars-labeled project.

Eurostars Program is a European Joint Program dedicated to the R&D-performing SMEs, and co-funded by the European Communities and 33 EUREKA member countries.

Eurostars aims to stimulate these SMEs to lead international collaborative research and innovation projects by easing access to support and funding. It is fine-tuned to focus on the needs of SMEs, and specifically targets the development of new products, processes and services and the access to transnational and international markets.

The Eurostars Program is powered by Eureka and the European Community.