BioCentury
ARTICLE | Tools & Techniques

Roche's heart for diabetes

December 4, 2014 8:00 AM UTC

Building on cardiomyocytes generated from iPS cells by Cellular Dynamics International Inc., Roche scientists have developed a cell-based model of diabetic cardiomyopathy for use in discovery screening.1 The cells have the metabolic and physiological features of patient-derived diabetic cardiomyocytes, but rather than stopping there, the researchers want to extend the model to specifically recapitulate ventricular heart cells.

Diabetic cardiomyopathy develops from metabolic imbalances in diabetes and is the leading cause of mortality in people with type 2 diabetes. Despite the significant clinical problem, there is no specific treatment available for diabetic cardiomyopathy and there are few viable systems for screening new compounds because of the disease's complex etiology...