HESI Cardiac Safety Committee awards a grant to Nanotools Bioscience to develop next-generation all-optical multiparametric cardiotoxicity assays.

 LA JOLLA, CA – September 3, 2020 – The Health and Environmental Sciences Institute (HESI)

and its Cardiac Safety Committee recently awarded Nanotools Bioscience a 12-month grant to develop next-generation all-optical multiparametric cardiotoxicity assays empowered by novel non-genetic optical pacing technology and deep learning algorithms. This sub-award is a part of a multi-year U01 grant that the HESI Cardiac Safety Committee was awarded by the US FDA for the “Evaluation of Integrated Human-Relevant Approaches to Identify Drug-Induced Cardiovascular Liabilities.” This grant supports HESI in funding and managing novel, in vitro experimental studies to develop targeted mechanistic data to inform drug safety assessment for key cardiac “failure modes.”

“Nanotools Bioscience is honored to receive this award from HESI”, - said Dr. Alex Savtchenko, Chief Executive Officer of Nanotools.

“Our goal is to increase the predictiveness of in vitro cardiotoxicity assays by providing hiPSC-derived cardiomyocytes with environmental cues mirroring the in vivo conditions.  and by performing the multiparametric evaluation of the functional activity of at the single-cell level.  Our combined efforts will ultimately result of streamlined and predictive cardiotoxicity screening as envisioned by the participants of the Comprehensive in Vitro Proarrhythmia Assay (CiPA) initiative.  The successful outcome of this project will lead to the accelerated development of less expensive and more efficient drugs."