Federal Project Grant Award Summary

Northwestern University received a $696,259 Project Grant from the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute (NHLBI) under the Cardiovascular Diseases Research program (CFDA 93.837), effective June 1, 2026, through April 30, 2031. The award supports research integrating flexible electronics and optogenetics to enable real-time arrhythmic profiling of engineered heart tissues (EHTs). The project addresses current limitations in assessing cardiac arrhythmias within EHT models by developing advanced measurement technologies that eliminate the need for toxic contraction inhibitors, specialized optical equipment, and voltage-sensitive dyes, while enabling non-terminal experimental protocols that allow longitudinal therapeutic tracking.

The research leverages patient-specific human induced pluripotent stem cell-derived cardiomyocytes (hiPSC-CMs) and engineered heart tissue platforms to develop personalized, genotype-specific therapeutic assessments for genetic heart disease. This work aligns with recent FDA regulatory modernization (FDA Modernization Act 2.0 and 2024 FDA guidance) that permits non-animal models for therapeutic efficacy evaluation, enabling preclinical testing of gene therapy, gene editing, and exon-skipping approaches in patient-specific in vitro systems prior to clinical advancement.