Founded on UCI research, biotech company developing heart therapeutics moves into Cove

Novoheart, a global stem cell biotechnology company developing heart therapeutics that was co-founded by UCI biomedical engineer Michelle Khine, has opened a flagship office at the Cove. Home to UCI Applied Innovation and other key organizations, the Cove features 46,000 square feet of technological facilities and collaborative office space. The complex supports the burgeoning innovation and entrepreneur ecosystem in Orange County. Khine, now on Novoheart’s scientific advisory team, developed inventions in her Department of Biomedical Engineering lab that were licensed to the company and serve as its foundational technology. Novoheart’s research on the human ventricular cardiac anisotropic sheet as a powerful tool for detecting drug-induced arrhythmias was featured in a recent issue of Advanced Materials, an international, peer-reviewed bioengineering journal. “The success of this revolutionary work was based on a productive, decadelong collaboration between my laboratory and [that of Ronald Li, CEO of Novoheart] for developing microfabrication technologies to strategically align human heart cells by design in a fashion most similar to that of the native human heart,” Khine said.