Live Cell Beating Assay Using Human iPSC-derived Cardiomyocytes for Evaluation of Drug Efficacy and Toxicity

A large percentage of new drugs fail in clinical studies due to cardiac toxicity. Therefore development of highly predictive in vitro assays suitable for screening, safety assessment, or other environments is extremely important for drug development. Human cardiomyocytes derived from stem cell sources can greatly accelerate the discovery of cardiac drugs and improve drug safety by offering more clinically relevant cell-based models than those presently available. Derived from human induced pluripotent cells and highly purified, iCell® Cardiomyocytes are especially attractive because they express ion channels and demonstrate beating and action potentials similar to primary cardiac cells. Here we demonstrate cell based assays for measuring the impact of pharmacological compounds on the rate and magnitude of beating cardiomyocytes with different instrument platforms