Electrical stimulation of Cardiomyocytes in a Heart-on-a-Chip
In the CIRCULAR project, we mimic the human heart in an Organ-on-Chip for the purpose of animal-free drug testing to treat atrial fibrillation.
Atrial Fibrillation (AF) is a serious health status affecting 33 million worldwide. The drug development for AF is cost intensive and a time-consuming process. Organ-on-Chip technology has the potential to revolutionize drug development. While conventional processes involve animal testing, this number can be reduced significantly by using human stem cell derived cardiomyocytes.
The goal of this internship is the culture of hiPSC-derived atrial cardiomyocytes in our organ-on-chip and to pace the cells using carbon and gold electrodes in the chip. Short and long-term pacing is followed by contractile readout using microscopy. The effect of heart rhythm influencing drugs on the stimulated cells will be studied to identify possible drug effective to AF patients.
The internship involves chip fabrication techniques like laser cutting and chip bonding, sputter coating and direct ink writing to implement electrodes, cell culture and cell pacing. Data readout is achieved using microscopy techniques and data processing is done using MUSCLEMOTION and ImageJ.
Do you have experience in cell culture, and would you like to broaden your expertise to the field nanotechnology for biomedical applications? Then we offer an exciting internship in a nice team of researchers! Your work directly contributes to reduce animal testing and improve the standardization of drug testing platforms.
Project duration:
Fall 26/27
Internship or graduation project:
Open for internship or graduation project
Educational programs:
- Biology and Medical Laboratory Research (both core tasks Research and Innovation)
Interested? Please send your motivation letter and CV before the 7th of June 2026 to appliednanotechnology.led@saxion.nl and include Michelle Fleermann (m.fleermann@saxion.nl) in the CC.