Your heart on a chip? | Berend van Meer | TEDxUniversiteitVanAmsterdam

Understanding the human body is difficult. Especially if we don’t want to understand just any body, but specifically yours. What happens when you get sick? Why do you respond well to a certain drug or therapy while your neighbour does not? We are used to studying the human body using animal models, but they are even more different than you compared to your neighbour. If we want to study you, we have to recreate an accurate model of you. That is why researchers are now recreating mini versions of human organs in the lab. Berend van Meer works in a group that tries to recreate the heart and they grow it on a chip to measure how the heart is contracting. Not just any heart, but your heart. Berend van Meer is a Co-Founder of FluidBalance, an innovative way of monitoring urineproduction. This makes the jobs of nurses easier, and leads to a more accurate registration of the fluid balance of patients.

Berend is also at the forefront of an innovative way to diagnose and treat patients, using stem cells grown on chips. He is focussed on growing your heart on a chip, using your stem cells, in order to diagnose and treat you more accurately and efficiently. This talk was given at a TEDx event using the TED conference format but independently organized by a local community.