‘Expect a potential manufacturing method to produce a next-generation tissue-sensor platform for an effective drug development process’

 A joint Korean-American research team has succeeded in printing an artificial heart that can observe drug toxicity in advance.

 POSTECH (POSTECH, President Kim Moo-hwan) made an announcement on the 17th that a research team led by Jang Jin-ah, a professor of mechanical engineering and IT convergence engineering, printed an artificial heart model that can observe the cardiotoxicity of drugs in vitro with biohybrid 3D printing technology in collaboration with Yeo Un-hong, a research team led by Georgia Tech in the U.S.

 Unlike artificial heart models so far, the joint research team introduced a "Biohybrid 3D printing (biohybrid 3D printing)" method. The two pillar structures were grafted onto a substrate with a built-in strain gauge sensor (BPSG sensor), followed by EHT integrated into a sensor to create a tissue-sensor platform. Using this produced platform and wireless multi-channel electronic system, EHT contractility was continuously monitored, and acute and chronic cardiotoxicity of drugs was evaluated.

Until now, in the case of the contraction monitoring system of in vitro cardiac models, there was a limit to continuously processing large amounts of image-based data for a long time with high time resolution. The newly developed tissue-sensor platform can quantitatively measure contraction with relatively small amounts of electric reading data, enabling long-term continuous monitoring.

 Professor Jang Jin-ah said, "We expect that biohybrid 3D printing technology will be a potential manufacturing method to produce a next-generation tissue-sensor platform for an effective drug development process."