Heart-on-a-chip and vasculature-on-a-chip platforms as models of cardiovascular disease

Organ-on-a-chip platforms have revolutionized the modelling of cardiovascular pathophysiology, enabling researchers to elucidate underlying mechanisms and drug responses for a variety of inherited and acquired diseases. This emerging technology can overcome the limitations of traditional in vitro culture systems and animal models such as poor biological relevance and species-specific differences. Heart-on-a-chip and vasculature-on-a-chip models consist of 3D structures incorporating relevant cell populations (often derived from pluripotent stem cell sources) with precisely controlled electromechanical conditions and biochemical stimuli to form functional biomimetic microenvironments. These tunable platforms hold great promise in establishing patient-specific disease models and accelerating drug discovery and development, an important step in the direction of personalized cardiovascular medicine. In this Review, we highlight organ-on-a-chip models that have successfully mimicked cardiovascular disease phenotypes and contributed to the development of novel therapeutics, and summarize the technical and biological barriers to the widespread utilization of this technology.