Engineered cardiac model systems for dilated cardiomyopathy

Introduction Dilated cardiomyopathy (DCM) is characterized by diminished contractile function and progressive enlargement of the heart. It is the leading cause of heart failure and DCM patients suffer from arrhythmia and risk a sudden death[1]. The goal of this project is to develop an engineered cardiac model Tissue stiffness will be determined using indentation tests (fig. 2), which can be related to the matrix composition, as determined by histology (fig. 3). Furthermore, tissue composition in both healthy and diseased myocardium will be studied by performing immunohistochemistry.