Ep. 317: “Engineering the Human Heart” Featuring Dr. Aitor Aguirre

About this episode

Dr. Aitor Aguirre discusses the use of pluripotent stem cells and cardiac organoids to model human heart development and disease.

Guest: Dr. Aitor Aguirre is an Associate Professor at Michigan State University and Director of the Stem Cell Core. In this episode, he discusses how his lab uses pluripotent stem cells and cardiac organoids to model human heart development and disease. He highlights the role of self-organization and bioengineering in building complex heart models, including assembloids with immune and neural components, and their applications in studying conditions like atrial fibrillation. He also shares perspectives on open science, collaboration, and training the next generation of scientists. Featured Products and Resources: Get a free wallchart on the directed differentiation of hPSCs. Explore STEMCELL Technologies’ collection of technical videos and webinars on neurological disease modeling. The Stem Cell Science Round Up Modeling West Nile Encephalitis – Human cerebral organoids effectively model West Nile virus encephalitis and its associated neuronal damage and inflammation. New Therapy for Leigh Syndrome – Researchers identified sildenafil as a potential treatment for Leigh syndrome. Epigenetic Landscapes of Breast Cancer – Patient-derived organoids reveal epigenetic subtypes of…

People in this episode

Guest: Dr. Aitor Aguirre

Topics covered

• pluripotent stem cells
• cardiac organoids
• human heart development
• bioengineering
• atrial fibrillation
• open science
• scientist training

Keywords

• pluripotent stem cells
• cardiac organoids
• heart models
• bioengineering
• atrial fibrillation
• open science
• scientist training

Mentioned in this episode

Organizations: Michigan State University, STEMCELL Technologies

Books & works: The Stem Cell Science Round Up

More episodes of The Stem Cell Podcast

• Ep. 322: “Healing Hearts with Macrophages” Featuring Dr. Filipa Simões · June 9, 2026 · 1h 22m
• Ep. 321: “Decoding Blood Stem Cells” Featuring Dr. Vijay Sankaran · May 26, 2026 · 1h 14m
• Ep. 320: “Cancer Under Pressure” Featuring Dr. Meenal Datta · May 12, 2026 · 1h 31m
• Ep. 319: “Building Better iPSCs” Featuring Dr. Andrew Gaffney · April 28, 2026 · 1h 12m
• Ep. 318: “Modeling Reproduction and Endocrinology” Featuring Dr. Kotaro Sasaki · April 14, 2026 · 1h 34m
• Ep. 316: “Primate Embryogenesis” Featuring Dr. Thorsten Boroviak · March 17, 2026 · 1h 25m