Jorik H. Amesz

• Master of Science
• PhD Student at Erasmus MC

Myocardial edema significantly develops during current subnormothermic ex situ heart perfusion (ESHP) procedures, resulting in myocardial function decline during prolonged perfusion. A relatively high coronary blood flow (CBF) during ESHP is thought to be responsible for this high degree of myocardial edema formation. In this study, we present a no...

Proof-of-concept to determine the direct biomechanical effects of cardiac contractility modulation (CCM) on living myocardial slices (LMS) from patients with end-stage heart failure (HF). Left ventricular LMS from patients with end-stage HF were produced and cultured in a biomimetic system with mechanical loading and electrical stimulation. CCM sti...

1.1 Aims: Proof-of-concept to determine the direct biomechanical effects of cardiac contractility modulation (CCM) on living myocardial slices (LMS) from patients with end-stage heart failure (HF). 1.2 Methods and results: Left ventricular LMS from patients with end-stage HF were produced and cultured in a biomimetic system with mechanical loading...

Heart failure is characterized by intricate myocardial remodeling that impairs the heart’s pumping and/or relaxation capacity, ultimately reducing cardiac output. It represents a major public health burden, given its high prevalence and associated morbidity and mortality rates, which continue to challenge healthcare systems worldwide. Despite advan...

Normothermic ex-situ heart perfusion (ESHP) enables assessment of hearts donated after circulatory death (DCD) prior to transplantation. However, sensitive parameters of cardiac function of DCD hearts on ESHP are needed. This study proposes a novel approach using electrophysiological (EP) parameters derived from electrical mapping as biomarkers of...

Background Normothermic ex situ heart perfusion (ESHP) has increased the donor pool with hearts donated after circulatory death (DCD), but functional assessment during ESHP using lactate trends is suboptimal. This study presents the clinical use of high-resolution cardiac mapping to assess electrical function of human DCD hearts on ESHP, where low-...

Background This study investigated oxygen handling of human hearts donated after circulatory death (DCD) on normothermic ex-situ heart perfusion (ESHP) and evaluated oxygen handling markers as adjuncts to cardiac viability assessment. Methods This single-center retrospective study included human DCD heart transplantation procedures using ESHP. Lac...

For recent decades, cardiac diseases have been the leading cause of death and morbidity worldwide. Despite significant achievements in their management, profound understanding of disease progression is limited. The lack of biologically relevant and robust preclinical disease models that truly grasp the molecular underpinnings of cardiac disease and...

Objectives: Normothermic ex-situ heart perfusion (ESHP) enables qualitative assessment of hearts donated after circulatory death (DCD) prior to transplantation. However, additional and sensitive parameters of cardiac function of DCD hearts on ESHP are needed. The aim of this study was to present electrophysiological (EP) parameters from electrical...

Background: Low-level vagus nerve stimulation through the tragus (tLLVNS) is increasingly acknowledged as a therapeutic strategy to prevent and treat atrial fibrillation. However, a lack in understanding of the exact antiarrhythmic properties of tLLVNS has hampered clinical implementation. Objectives: In this study, we aimed to study the effects...

Heart failure (HF) is a rapidly growing pandemic while medical treatment options remain limited. Omecamtiv mecarbil (OM) is a novel HF drug that directly targets the myosin heads of the cardiac muscle. This study used living myocardial slices (LMS) from patients with HF to evaluate the direct biomechanical effects of OM as compared to dobutamine. L...

Background Atrial fibrillation (AF) occurs frequently in patients with hypertrophic obstructive cardiomyopathy (HOCM) and the success rate of pulmonary vein isolation in these patients is less effective compared to other populations. This may be explained by the presence of an extensive arrhythmogenic substrate in both atria due to a primary atrial...

Living myocardial slices (LMS) are beating sections of intact human myocardium that maintain 3D microarchitecture and multicellularity, thereby overcoming most limitations of conventional myocardial cell cultures. We introduce a novel method to produce LMS from human atria and apply pacing modalities to bridge the gap between in-vitro and in-vivo a...

Purpose Multiple randomized controlled trials have presented SGLT2 inhibitors (SGLT2i) as novel pharmacological therapy for patients with heart failure, resulting in reductions in hospitalization for heart failure and mortality. Given the absence of SGLT2 receptors in the heart, mechanisms of direct cardioprotective effects of SGLT2i are complex an...

Living myocardial slices (LMS) are ultrathin (150–400 µm) sections of intact myocardium that can be used as a comprehensive model for cardiac arrhythmia research. The recent introduction of biomimetic electromechanical cultivation chambers enables long-term cultivation and easy control of living myocardial slices culture conditions. The aim of this...

Living myocardial slices (LMS) are beating sections of intact human myocardium that maintain 3D microarchitecture and multicellularity, thereby overcoming most limitations of conventional myocardial cell cultures. We introduce a novel method to produce LMS from human atria and apply pacing modalities to bridge the gap between in-vitro and in-vivo a...

Background: Heart transplantation (HTx) is, at present, the most effective therapy for end-stage heart failure patients; however, the number of patients on the waiting list is rising globally, further increasing the gap between demand and supply of donors for HTx. First studies using the Organ Care System (OCS) for normothermic machine perfusion s...

Living myocardial slice production from ex-vivo perfused porcine slaughterhouse hearts provides a unique combination of two research platforms for translational cardiothoracic research purposes.