Federal Project Grant Award Summary

The University of Iowa received a $784,442 Project Grant from the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute (NHLBI) under the Cardiovascular Diseases Research program (CFDA 93.837), awarded July 6, 2026, with completion targeted for March 31, 2030. The grant supports research examining the effects of chronic opioid use on cardiac development through two complementary research platforms: in vivo studies using genetically modified mice and in vitro studies utilizing human pluripotent stem cell (HPSC)-derived vascularized cardiac organoids (VCOs). The research addresses the urgent clinical need to understand how opioid timing, dose, and type affect early cardiovascular development (ECVD) during fetal exposure, with the ultimate goal of establishing evidence-based guidelines for safe opioid pain management during pregnancy to mitigate congenital heart defects and adverse neonatal outcomes.

The grant deliverables include robust experimental evidence validating the efficacy of the HPSC-derived vascularized organoid platform as a translational research tool for modeling maternal opioid exposure effects on cardiac and endothelial cell development. The research platform incorporates genetically modified embryonic stem cell reporter lines expressing cell-type-specific fluorescence markers to enable high-throughput evaluation of structure, function, and vascular network formation. This work positions the platform for clinical application using patient-specific induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs) to predict personalized cardiovascular responses to various opioids, advancing precision medicine approaches to pregnancy pain management.