Engineering mini human hearts to study pregnancy complications and birth defects

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Brett Volmert, Michigan State University; Aitor Aguirre, Michigan State University, and Aleksandra Kostina, Michigan State University

(THE CONVERSATION) How did your heart form? What triggered your first heartbeat? To this day, the mechanisms of human heart development remain elusive.

Researchers know the heart is the first organ to fully function in the growing human embryo. It begins as a simple tube that starts to pump blood by the fourth week of gestation. By the ninth week, the heart is fully formed. The heart is critical to early development because it provides essential nutrients throughout the developing fetus.

But due to its early formation, the heart is exposed for a long duration to substances a pregnant person might come into contact with, such as medications or pollutants. This may be a main reason why congenital heart disease is the most common type of birth defect in people, occurring in over 1 in 100 births worldwide.

Traditionally, scientists have used...