Discussion

Many human cardiovascular diseases are not properly modelled by animal studies and classical cell lines due to the differences in species or the lack of appropriate human cells. The potential of human stem cell-based disease modelling is enhanced by the realisation that cardiac cells from human pluripotent stem cells can be obtained with disease-specificity. Recent advancement in technology of human embryonic stem cells and induced pluripotent stem cells has enabled us to generate various new cell types and phenotypic models of cardiovascular diseases. The development of high-content imaging assays enhances the workflow for understanding progressions and identification of key cellular pathways of these diseases and searching of potential drug candidates. Results from phenotypic assays with differentiated disease cells will be presented.