Eccentric contraction of 3-dimensional tissue engineered skeletal muscle-on-chip: next generation tool for therapy development

In this project, Erasmus MC, LUMC, and the company Optics11 Life collaborate on development of technology that involves the generation of a module that enables elongation and contraction (i.e. eccentric contraction) of patient-derived, cultured skeletal muscles on a chip. With this new technology, we will address biological questions such as how can we culture matured muscles from stem cells, how can eccentric contraction stimulate maturation, and to what extent can eccentric contraction beneficial or detrimental in muscle disease. We will test this for the muscle disorders Pompe disease and FSHD.

There are >600 muscle disorders, but only a handful of therapies. With our human, patient-derived muscle on a chip model, we will be able to closely mimic muscle disease and the response to new therapies. This is expected to increase the success rate of clinical trials, thereby increasing treatment options for patients, which has a large societal and economic impact.

Our approach is to generate a module for a device termed Cuore that can both elongate, stimulate, and measure forces of tissue engineered skeletal muscles. The Cuore enables measurement of multiple muscles in real time simultaneously, enabling semi-high throughput testing of therapeutics, leading to faster and more reliable therapy development.

To this end, we will first develop an actuation module, followed by a combination with contraction, which we will test on healthy muscles, and then on diseased muscles