New Sensor “Listens” to Mini-Hearts: Contactless Well-Plate Platform Could Accelerate Drug Discovery

In drug discovery and disease research, animal models often cannot fully reproduce human-specific cardiac function or drug responses. As a result, cardiac organoids and 3D cardiac tissues generated from human iPS cells and other sources are increasingly being used. However, conventional methods for examining how these small tissues beat and respond to drugs or stimulation have several limitations: microscope image analysis is time-consuming, tissues often need to be cultured or fixed on sensors, and it is difficult to measure many samples simultaneously.

Inspired by the “lateral line” system that fish use to sense water flow and pressure changes, the research team developed a well-plate sensor called the Biomechanical Well Plate (BWP), which can read the beating of cardiac organoids without physical contact. When a cardiac organoid is placed in a small well filled with culture medium, pressure changes generated by its beating cause tiny deformations of the liquid surface. These deformations are transmitted as air-pressure changes to a highly sensitive silicon cantilever sensor and recorded as electrical signals. This enables the strength and rhythm of beating to be measured in real time, without directly touching the tissue or recording long microscope videos (Figure 1).

Figure 1: Well-Plate Sensor for Wirelessly Reading Mini-Heart Beats

Simply placing cardiac organoids or 3D cardiac tissues into the wells enables contactless acquisition of mechanical signals associated with beating, which can be monitored in real time on a smartphone or similar device.

In experiments using cardiac organoids measuring 600 to 2000 micrometers, the BWP measurements showed good agreement with conventional microscope image analysis. The system also continuously measured responses to temperature changes, drug administration, and electrical stimulation. For example, it detected changes in beating frequency, contraction and relaxation times, and irregular beat-to-beat intervals in response to drugs that accelerate beating or induce arrhythmia-like responses. In addition, a 2×2 prototype array demonstrated that multiple 3D cardiac tissues could be measured wirelessly while maintaining the culture environment (Figure 1).

This achievement is expected to provide a platform technology for making cardiac organoid-based drug screening and cardiotoxicity testing simpler and more efficient. In the future, it may also contribute to personalized medicine using cardiac tissues generated from patient-derived cells, as well as to the wider adoption of human-relevant evaluation methods that do not rely on animal experiments.

Papers
Journal: Nature Sensors
Title: Wireless and contactless biomechanic well plate for monitoring cardiac organoid and 3D-tissue contraction
Authors: Chi Cong Nguyen, Jordan Thorpe, Dang Tran Bach, Azadeh Zahabi, Quang Anh Nguyen, Sinuo Zhao, Nhat Minh Doan, Michael A. Listyawan, Hongru Chen, Thanh Vinh Nguyen, Syamak Farajikhah, Ann-Na Cho, Nigel H. Lovell, Thanh Nho Do, Timothée Mouterde, Adam P. Hill, Hoang-Phuong Phan
DOI: 10.1038/s44460-026-00087-3