Prof. R. Passier (ASCT) secures ERC Proof of Concept grant to advance multi-heart platform for cardiovascular drug discovery
- Jul 10
- 2 min read
01 July 2026
Robert Passier, Professor of Applied Stem Cell Technologies at University of Twente receives
European Research Council (ERC) Proof of Concept grant to advance the valorisation of the pumping human mini heart platform for cardiovascular disease research and drug discovery.
The platform is built to serve as a more predictive human model, particularly for diastolic dysfunction and heart failure with preserved ejection fraction. The human mini heart model addresses an essential unmet need, given that traditional preclinical tools represent poor proxies for studying human cardiac diseases, resulting in high percentage of clinical trial failures.
In recent years, Passier's team has established protocols for generating specialized cardiac cells and cardiovascular progenitor cells from human pluripotent stem cells. Drawing on this know-how, his University of Twente team has engineered cardiac organoids integrated in a microfluidic platform that can be used for in-depth tissue analysis and high-throughput screening of drug candidates.
Prof. R. Passier's research focuses will thus focus on building on ERC Advanced Grant HEART2BEAT to validate the mini-heart system that pumps fluid and provides quantitative functional readouts, including cardiac output, ejection fraction, and relaxation kinetics.
By enabling to better understand human cardiac physiology, generate human-relevant insights into processes responsible for cardiovascular diseases and reliably predict patients' responses to drug candidates, this platform will transform the capacity of pharmaceutical companies to develop effective treatments for this leading cause of death worldwide.
In parallel with technical validation, the project will evaluate the commercial potential of the technology through collaboration with industry partners, paving the way for its translation into pharmaceutical drug discovery and potential spin-out creation.
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