This week we are travelling to Paris to attend the kick-off meeting of CISTEM Project called “Heart-On-chip based on induced pluripotent Stem cell Technology for personalized Medicine”.
The main goal of this European project is to create a heart-on-a-chip model by using microfluidics and developing a platform for cardiomyocytes-iPSCs. These human-induced pluripotent stem cells are very useful in organ-on-chip devices because they are derived in a patient-matched manner making them a great element for personalized medicine.
The consortium consists of seven companies and institutions from Europe and the United States with the leadership of the Biosense Institute in Serbia. Apart from them, there are two French biotech enterprises, Cherry Biotech and Elvesys SAS, and 3 important Universities: Rutgers New Jersey (United States), Jagiellonski (Poland) and Zaragoza, where the group that made Beonchip possible will also be involved. It´s a great opportunity to network between us because the project includes some visits to the other participants to share our knowledge in some technical and entrepreneurial topics, so in the next years a member of our team will spend some months around the world trying to learn as much as possible from some of these great professionals.
Right now we are involved in two European projects, Heart-on-Chip and Bone-on-Chip (with two leading Dutch institutions), where we will help to create these new “organ-on-chips” that would lead us to the fastest and cheapest way to develop drugs.
