Growing Tissues That Work A Microphysiological Platform for 3D Tissue Culture

A team of researchers from the University of Toronto and Valo Health, Inc. have filed a patent for a microphysiological platform that incorporates embedded electrodes for growing and stimulating three-dimensional tissue cultures. The invention enables scalable, automated electrical stimulation of engineered tissues – an advance with significant implications for drug discovery, disease modelling and regenerative medicine.

The Problem

The drug discovery and development pipeline has a fundamental problem: most compounds that show promise in cell culture and animal models fail when tested in humans. One major reason is that flat, two-dimensional cell cultures grown in standard laboratory dishes are poor models of how cells behave in actual human tissues. Cells in the body are organised in three dimensions, interact with a complex extracellular matrix, and receive mechanical, chemical and electrical signals from their environment. The disconnect between simple 2D cultures and the complexity of living tissue is a major contributor to the estimated 90 per cent failure rate of drug candidates in clinical trials.

Microphysiological systems – also called organ-on-chip or tissue-on-chip platforms – have emerged as a transformative approach to this problem. By engineering three-dimensional tissue constructs that more closely resemble the architecture, function and microenvironment of actual organs and tissues, these platforms can provide better predictions of how drugs, toxins and disease states affect human biology. Three-dimensional cardiac tissue models, for example, can beat spontaneously and respond to electrical stimulation in ways that much more closely mirror actual heart muscle than any 2D culture system.

However, microphysiological platforms face significant practical challenges. Providing electrical stimulation to 3D tissue constructs typically requires electrodes to be manually positioned near the tissue, which is imprecise, difficult to scale for high-throughput applications, and not amenable to automation. Without scalable electrical stimulation, these platforms cannot be practically deployed for drug screening programmes that require testing hundreds or thousands of compounds across large numbers of tissue samples.

What This Invention Does

The invention addresses the stimulation challenge by embedding electrodes directly within the microphysiological platform. Rather than positioning electrodes externally for each tissue culture well, the electrodes are integrated into the device architecture itself – present and precisely positioned relative to the tissue growth area as an inherent feature of the platform design.

This embedded electrode approach enables scalable, automated tissue stimulation. Because the electrodes are part of the device structure, the same electrical stimulation programme can be applied consistently and simultaneously to multiple tissue culture units without manual electrode positioning. Automated control systems can deliver precise, programmed stimulation protocols to all constructs in parallel, enabling high-throughput screening and reducing variability between individual tissue samples.

The platform is designed to grow, maintain and use 3D tissues in vitro – supporting both the formation and the ongoing culture of three-dimensional tissue constructs, not just their stimulation. The combination of 3D culture architecture and embedded electrical stimulation creates an integrated system for producing physiologically relevant tissue models that are practically compatible with drug discovery workflows.

Key Features

Embedded electrode integration. Electrodes are built directly into the microphysiological platform rather than being positioned externally, ensuring consistent and precise electrode placement relative to the 3D tissue construct in every well.

Scalable automated stimulation. The embedded design enables automated delivery of electrical stimulation to multiple tissue culture units simultaneously, making the platform suitable for high-throughput drug screening applications.

3D tissue culture support. The platform is specifically designed for growing and maintaining three-dimensional tissue constructs, supporting the formation of tissue architectures that more closely resemble in vivo biology than conventional 2D cultures.

Multi-well scalability. The device architecture supports scaling across many replicate culture units, enabling the statistical power needed for meaningful drug discovery assays.

Academic-commercial collaboration. The joint applicants include individual researchers (Boyang Zhang, Milica Radisic and Yimu Zhao) and Valo Health, Inc., reflecting a translational research pathway from academic innovation to commercial development.

Who Is Behind It?

This invention arises from the laboratory of Professor Milica Radisic at the University of Toronto, a world leader in cardiac tissue engineering and microphysiological systems. Professor Boyang Zhang and Dr Yimu Zhao are co-inventors and collaborators in this research programme. Valo Health, Inc. is a US-based AI-driven drug discovery company that has partnered with academic groups to translate research into commercial applications. The inventor team also includes Keith Yeager. The application is filed through Adams Pluck in Sydney and is a divisional of an earlier filing (AU 2020427585).

Why It Matters

The global pharmaceutical industry invests enormous resources in drug discovery and development, yet the majority of drug candidates fail – at great financial cost and with delayed benefits to patients. Improving the predictive accuracy of preclinical testing is one of the most important ways to reduce this failure rate and accelerate the delivery of effective medicines to patients.

Microphysiological systems with embedded electrodes represent a significant step toward better preclinical models for electrically active tissues, particularly cardiac and neurological tissues. The ability to apply consistent, automated electrical stimulation to 3D cardiac tissue constructs at scale means these platforms can be integrated into high-throughput drug screening workflows – enabling the testing of many more compounds against more physiologically relevant tissue models than was previously practical. For cardiac drug development in particular – where predicting electrophysiological effects and cardiotoxicity is critical – embedded electrode platforms could meaningfully improve the predictive value of preclinical testing and reduce the rate of costly late-stage clinical failures.

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AU 2026201619 was published in the Australian Official Journal of Patents on 19 March 2026 and is open for public inspection. Patent applications represent inventions that are sought to be protected and do not necessarily reflect commercially available products.