NEW YORK (GenomeWeb News) – Cellular Dynamics International has landed a small business innovation research grant of $500,000 from the National Institutes of Health to develop pluripotent stem-cell derived human heart cells.
The Madison, Wis.-based developer of tools for predictive screening and drug research said today that the cardiomyocytes it is developing can be used in modeling studies of the early stages of cardiotoxicty.
The company said that this is the second SBIR grant it has received from NIH, and that the two now total $1 million in funding.
CDI will use pluripotent stem cells to derive pure populations of cardiomyocytes, which it will use to develop preclinical models to predict which drugs may be toxic to the human heart.
Such models could “significantly reduce the chances of a cardiotoxic compound from ever reaching a clinical population, thus improving the overall efficiency and safety of the drug development process,” the company said.