# Engineering Vascularized Cardiac Muscle

> **NIH NIH R01** · COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY HEALTH SCIENCES · 2022 · $634,867

## Abstract

The need for developing effective treatment modalities for the injured and failing heart is expanding, as cardiac
disease continues to take more human lives than all cancer combined. Cardiac muscle generated from human
induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs) could serve as a model for studies of heart injury and regeneration, if
the tissue would be mature enough to acquire adult-like phenotype. The lack of maturity and patient specificity
are limiting the utility of currently available models. Three advances, achieved in our labs during our previous
grant cycle and recent preliminary studies, form basis for the proposed new approach to studies of cardiac
injury and regeneration: (a) Adult-like human cardiac muscle grown from human iPSCs (Ronaldson-Bouchard
et al, Nature); (b) Perfusable network of channels serving as a template for vascularized tissues (Zhang et al,
Nature Materials 2016) and (c) Heart regeneration in an animal model using human iPS-CM derived exosomes
(Liu et al, Nature Biomedical Engineering, 2018). We propose to build upon these advances and bioengineer
patient-specific vascularized human heart muscle using iPSCs from diverse populations, and study the
individual differences under normal conditions, following ischemic injury, and during regeneration. We will
focus on the racial background and sex as major risk factors for cardiovascular disease. Another important
focus of the proposed studies is on the cell-secreted vesicles (exosomes) and their mRNA cargo, both as the
readouts of cell state (e.g., during injury and regeneration) and as a cell-free therapeutic modality for ischemic
heart. We hypothesize that the mature vascularized cardiac muscle generated from iPS cells from diverse
patient populations (female vs male; African-American vs white) will be able to capture clinically observed
differences in responses to cardiac ischemia, and that we will be able to specifically address these differences
by sustained delivery of patient-tailored exosomes. To test this hypothesis, we propose three specific aims that
will be pursued in an integrated fashion, with the outcomes of each aim informing the other two aims. Aim 1 is
to engineer adult-like vascularized cardiac muscle from patient-specific iPSCs. Aim 2 is to develop an in vitro
model of cardiac injury-regeneration using patient-specific iPSCs. Aim 3 is to establish mechanisms of
exosome mediated signaling. We believe that this work will have impact on quantitative biological research and
the development of bioengineering modalities for treating heart disease.

## Key facts

- **NIH application ID:** 10328923
- **Project number:** 5R01HL076485-15
- **Recipient organization:** COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY HEALTH SCIENCES
- **Principal Investigator:** Gordana Vunjak-Novakovic
- **Activity code:** R01 (R01, R21, SBIR, etc.)
- **Funding institute:** NIH
- **Fiscal year:** 2022
- **Award amount:** $634,867
- **Award type:** 5
- **Project period:** 2005-07-01 → 2023-04-11

## Primary source

NIH RePORTER: https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/10328923

## Citation

> US National Institutes of Health, RePORTER application 10328923, Engineering Vascularized Cardiac Muscle (5R01HL076485-15). Retrieved via AI Analytics 2026-05-23 from https://api.ai-analytics.org/grant/nih/10328923. Licensed CC0.

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