Fibrosis Analysis in Cardioids via Transcriptomic Spatial-mapping in 3D

Despite significant advances in cardiovascular research, developing new therapies for heart failure remains challenging. The disease affects more than 64 million people worldwide and represents a major, growing global health burden. Conventional preclinical tools such as animal models and 2D cell cultures often fail to capture the complex human biology, cellular interactions, and spatial organization underlying cardiac disease.

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This Eurostars project addresses this gap by combining physiologically relevant human cardiac organoids with high-throughput 3D spatial transcriptomics. Traditional spatial transcriptomics techniques are restricted to thin 2D tissue sections, making them fundamentally mismatched for organoid analysis at scale. Using Cubase Bio's true 3D spatial technology, which is scalable to 384-well plate formats, the project will investigate HeartBeat.bio's human cardioids in their full, three-dimensional tissue context.

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Supported by ca. €1M in Eurostars funding, FACTS-3D is co-funded by Horizon Europe, Vinnova (Sweden), and the Austrian Research Promotion Agency (FFG). Together, the partners are building a scalable, human-relevant discovery platform to accelerate target identification and advance next-generation heart failure therapies.