ABOUT LANDAU-LEVI LAB
This is for my lab at the faculty of biomedical engineering at the Technion. The heart is a highly complex organ with a unique cellular composition. Animal models do not accurately recapitulate human cardiovascular diseases. Therefore, there is a growing need to develop reliable in vitro models consisting of organ-on-a-chip (OoC) platforms for modeling human heart function in health and disease states. One major challenge in developing suitable in vitro cardiac models is the difficulty in obtaining a sufficient number of cardiomyocytes (CM) from human hearts or expanding them in vitro due to their limited proliferative capacity. The ability to differentiate human induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs) and embryonic stem cells (ESCs) into large numbers of CMs addresses this limitation1.
OUR MISSION
Redefining Cardiovascular Disease Modeling
My major motivation is to employ an interdisciplinary approach combining the expertise I acquired during my graduate studies in mechanobiology and tissue engineering of blood vessels, as well as 3D printing, with new methodologies I pioneered in my postdoctoral studies in stem cell bioengineering, microphysiological systems, and vascularized cardiac tissue modeling. My goal is to create organ-on-chip tissue models that closely mirror human biology, specifically cardiac vascularization.
Our Journey So Far
NEWS
Landau-Levi Lab In The Press
