Scientific poster: High throughput assessment of cardiotoxicity in iPSC-derived cardiomyocytes

Cardiotoxicity is a key reason for drug attrition from the clinic. To identify potential toxicity in drug candidates as early in drug development as possible, predictive and high throughput assays are needed. Current in vitro cardiotoxicity testing platforms have two main drawbacks. Traditional models such as primary human cardiomyocytes are limited to low throughput. On the other hand, some high throughput compatible models lack the relevant physiological responses.

The availability of iPSC-derived cardiomyocytes provides the opportunity to develop high-throughput compatible assays, allowing detection of changes in cardiac contractility with a high sensitivity. Using proprietary iPSC-derived ventricular cardiomyocytes, we developed an assay to assess effects of cardiotoxic compounds on the Ca2+-flux. The assay is fully automated using 384-well plate format, enabling multi-parameter analysis including beating frequency, average peak amplitude, and peak width.