MAREP project aimed at improving the in-vitro assessment of drugs' adverse effects on cardiac cells (cardiotoxicity). The aim of the project was to develop a new method to relieve the heavy burden of cardiotoxicity in the drug discovery process. In fact, cardiotoxicity is currently one of the major obstacles to the development of new drugs and one of the main reasons for withdrawals of drugs already on the market.
To reach its goals, the project aimed at developing a novel automated system for the comprehensive electrophysiological investigation of drugs effects on in-vitro cardiac cell cultures.
MAREP's innovation combines laser excitation of novel metamaterials with high-density microelectrode arrays (HD-MEA), providing high quality and high throughput recordings of cardiac cells activity and offering an unprecedented and affordable method for the global study of drug effects on the heart.
MAREP has allowed the development and assembling of a fully operating prototype which can be used for detecting accurately the effects of several known drugs on cardiomyocytes derived from human pluripotent stem cells. The drugs identified for testing have been selected from the internationally recognized list released by the CiPA (Comprehensive in-vitro Proarrhythmia Assay) consortium. Thus, the MAREP technology demonstrated high potential for boosting the development of new drugs through the establishment of a novel, affordable, cost-effective and automated experimental procedure.
The project's promising outcomes led to the creation in January 2021 of an innovative start-up in Italy, FORESEE Biosystems srl, as a result of the work carried out within MAREP. FORESEE Biosystems will commercialize products and services using predominantly technologies resulting from the MAREP project. Products and services of FORESEE Biosystems are targeted to pharmaceutical companies, Contract Research Organizations (CROs), and research labs focused on cardiac electrophysiology, pharmacology and toxicology.
