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200492 https://hdl.handle.net/2286/R.2.N.200492 http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/ http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0 2025-05 28 pages Neff, Keagan Nikkhah, Mehdi Ravi, Kalpana Barrett, The Honors College School of Molecular Sciences School of International Letters and Cultures Recently, many models of the myocardium have been advanced to fulfill the need for a physiologically relevant platform for drug screening and disease modeling purposes. One promising area of research is engineering cardiac tissues at micro-scale level, including heart-on-a-chip (HOC) models and engineered heart tissue (EHT) constructs. However, a major drawback of these models is the lack of electroconductivity cues that are inherent in the native myocardium. Thus, in this study, we utilized microscale technologies to develop a conductive cardiac tissue using a threefold approach to improve the physiological relevance of the model system. First, we employed a microfluidic device to house our engineered cardiac tissue comprised of human-induced pluripotent stem cell (hiPSC)- derived cardiomyocytes (CMs) and cardiac fibroblasts (CFs). This non-electroconductive cardiac tissue was first established within the device, and several co-culture media compositions were tested to determine the ideal ratio for CM and CF growth and function. Next, to introduce an electroconductive element, we incorporated gold nanorods (GNRs) within a gelatin methacrylate (GelMA) hydrogel. qPCR results showed that adding GNRs to an EHT led to the upregulation of many structural and calcium-handling genes. Finally, we incorporated the GNRs within the HOC to form an electroconductive HOC (eHOC) model. The eHOC showed improved alignment, cell-cell connections, and sarcomere structure with the addition of 0.5 mg/mL GNRs. The eHOC also showed a more regular and synchronous beating pattern. Overall, these studies underscored the importance of integrating an electroconductive element into microengineered cardiac tissues to increase the physiological relevance of these 3D models established in vitro. Heart-on-a-chip Stem Cells Conductive Nanoparticles Development of microengineered heart tissue: integrating human-induced pluripotent stem cells and conductive nanomaterials for advanced cardiac modeling