BioRobot-MiniHeart

Project

Engineering a living human Mini-heart and a swimming Bio-robot

Acronym

BioRobot-MiniHeart

Funding

Horizon 2020

Funding scheme

RIA – Research and Innovation action

Start Date

01/11/2022

End Date

31/10/2027

Consortium

Universiteit Twente
Nanoscale Systems, NANOSS GMBH
River Biomedics B.V.
Universidad de Malaga
Metatissue

Eligible Total Cost

4.475.946,00 €

Resume

Making our own hearts is just a heartbeat away, literally. Engineers are joining forces with biologists to make biological heart-robots. The EU-funded BioRobot-MiniHeart project is developing a vascularised beating mini-heart. In parallel, the team is creating a self-propulsion swimming bio-robot that is made by assembling human cardiac cells into 3D tissue structures. To do this, they used sacrificial molding and high-resolution 3D bioprinting. The mini-heart and the bio-robot will provide scientists with a more realistic human cardiac model in vitro and an appropriate tool to assess cardiotoxicants’ presence in the environment. This innovation is expected to help speed up development of heart disease cures.