Services
Tissue Stretching
The Tissue Stretcher stimulates cells grown in hydrogel tissue constructs through repetitive mechanical strain. Tissues, stretched up to 40 percent by a pulsing motion, mimic the physical conditions for cardiac tissue, but can be adjusted for different stroke length and speed, as well as altogether different applications. The stretcher platform has the ability to stretch up to 32 separate tissues, utilizing special 3D suspended culture wells via the MC-8™. Together with the Palpator™, these two products can produce the mechanical stimulation and measurement data needed for future drug discovery and regenerative medicine.
ACTROTM
Let Auto Cell & Tissue Culture Robot, ACTRO™, Free Up Your Time!
ACTRO™ can
- Screen cell culture condition to optimize and normalize multiple iPSC lines for a reproducible differentiation
- Screen differentiation conditions of iPSCs into various somatic cell types
- Passage iPSCs without centrifugation
- Dispense medium gently
- Scale up cell production
- Maintain pluripotency
- Use a heated-tilt plate holder
JOVE Article
A Short Review of Pluripotent Cell Culture Cost
Analysis of Cardiac Physiology
Excitation-Contraction-Energy (ECE) Coupling
An electrical stimulation, i.e., action potential initiates cardiac contraction. Intracellular Ca2+-transient couples action potential and cardiac contraction. Cardiac contraction is also coupled to mitochondria that replenish energy (i.e., ATP) and recycle metabolites (ADP and Pi). InvivoSciences analyzes all those parameters to determine drug-induced or genetically driven changes in ECE coupling.
Applications
- Drug-induced cardiac safety analysis using 3D micro-heart tissues (NuHeart™)
- Discovery of compounds to improve cardiac physiology
- Drug target analysis
- Lead optimization
- Biomarker discovery and optimization
- Mechanistic study of inherited cardiac diseases
- Genetic-trio analysis for Precision Medicine Development
In Silico Analysis of Cardiac Electrophysiology
For safety pharmacology projects, we provide systems biology analysis of cardiac electrophysiology using various computational models.
Ultra-Rapid Plate Reader, FDSS/μCell (Hamamatsu)
Our in-house FDSS/μCELL analyzes fluorescent/luminescent signals from all the well of a 96/384-well plate simultaneously, enabling ultra-rapid measurements of cardiac physiology.
With a multi-channel electric field stimulation (EFS) device, FDSS/μCELL is used to measure high-throughput phenotyping of cardiomyocytes and neurons derived from human iPSC.
Service Example
- Screening Assays with FDSS/μCELL (Cat#: ivs100214)
- Excitation-Contraction Coupling Analysis: 2D CMs (Cat#: ivs100215)
PalpatorTM
The Palpator™ is an automated assay system that measures cellular contractility and extracellular matrix stiffness of 3D tissue constructs. The highly sensitive force detection system reports physical properties of cells in 3D matrices corresponding to their physiological states.
Applications:
- Cellular contractility
- Extracellular matrix stiffness
- Preload dependent cardiac contractility assay
- Toxicity determinations
- Signal transduction studies for cellular contractility
- Long-term (days, weeks, months) efficacy and toxicity testing
- Pharmaceutical compound screening
Demonstration Video: Force measurement of engineered cardiac tissue paced under low and high tension