Congenital cardiac arrhythmias are inherited disorders of the heart’s electrical system and can lead to life-threatening rhythm disturbances or sudden cardiac death. Although each condition is rare, together they affect approximately 1 in 2,000 people worldwide. For many patients, effective treatment options are still limited.

Stem cell models of the heart

To develop better therapies, it is essential that heart diseases are studied in models that closely reflect human heart biology. Human pluripotent stem cells offer unique opportunities in this respect.

Richard Davis, group leader at LUMC and Associate Investigator at reNEW Leiden, explains: “Pluripotent stem cells can multiply indefinitely and be directed in the laboratory into almost any cell type in the body. In our group, we use them to generate heart cells that allow us to study cardiac arrhythmias and develop new treatments in a human-relevant model.”