Dear Colleagues,

Heart failure is the number one killer, and drug-induced cardiotoxicity is a major cause of market withdrawal. The lack of availability of culture systems for human heart tissue that is functionally and structurally viable for more than 24 hours limits validation of novel heart failure therapies and reliable cardiotoxicity testing. Hence, there is a worldwide unmet medical need for better approaches to identify drug efficacy and cardiotoxicity before undertaking costly and time-consuming ‘first in man’ trials. Currently, cardiac cells (human induced pluripotent stem cell-derived cardiomyocytes (hiPSC-CMs)) are used to test therapeutic efficiency and drug toxicity, as they are the only human cardiac cells that can be cultured for prolonged periods required to test drug efficacy and toxicity. However, a single cell type cannot replicate the phenotype of complicated 3D heart tissue which is formed by multiple cell types. Importantly, the effect of drugs needs to be tested on adult cardiomyocytes, which have different characteristics and toxicity responses compared to immature hiPSC-CMs. There are recent efforts to use hiPS-CM-based microtissues or organoids mixed with different types of supporting stromal cells. Additionally, recent developments for culturing human heart slices are a promising model of intact human myocardium. In this Special Issue, we aim to cover some of the recent developments in various human-based platforms that allow cardiac toxicity and pharmacological efficacy testing.

Dr. Tamer Mohamed
Guest Editor

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• heart
• toxicity
• pharmacology
• drug efficacy
• therapeutics
• cardiotoxicity